A web site devoted to novels and films that confront the social, ethical, and cultural implications of genetics.
I Am Legend (2007)
Directed by Francis Lawrence
The film opens with a 2009 interview with renowned scientist Dr. Alice Krippen (Emma Thompson) describing her miraculous cure for cancer. Her team has taken the measles virus and engineered it at a genetic level to make it helpful rather than harmful to humans. We then flash forward three years to find New York City deserted and overrun by nature. Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is introduced racing a car through the city hunting deer until a pride of lions steals his prey. A virologist and the lone NYC survivor, Neville spends his days working out, hunting and gathering food, broadcasting on radio frequencies to call any survivors to his location, and experimenting to find a cure for the epidemic in his basement laboratory...