The Omega Man

The Omega Man

Starring Charlton Heston, Rosalind Cash, Anthony Zerbe, Paul Koslo

Directed by Boris Sagal

The Story:
Colonel Robert Neville (Charlton Heston) is the last man surviving in a world gone by.  After a border dispute between China and Russia, a biological agent was released that caused death in the majority of the world's population.  Neville injected himself with an experimental serum, rendering him immune, leading him to be the only normal man in the world.

Those who didn't die were turned into monsters, pale-skinned people with grey hair who have an abrasion to sunlight and can only come out at night.  Their leader, Matthias (Anthony Zerbe), sees Neville as the last shred of old humanity (along with his art, books, machinery, weaponry, and technology), the cause of the world ending, and sets out to kill him.  Neville has spent two years in the city taking care of Matthias's clan, thinking he's the last normal human - until he meets Lisa (Rosalind Cash), and learns there's still some survivors out there who haven't turned into Matthias's ravenous monsters.  He knows he has a cure in his blood, and sets out to rescue Lisa and the others before they turn into monsters themselves.

The Synopsis:
The novel "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson has undergone three major motion picture re-tellings.  The first was in 1964 titled "The Last Man on Earth," starring Vincent Price as the last man on Earth who hunts the infected people, who have turned into vampires, and this film is the closest to Matheson's source material.  In 2007, Will Smith starred in "I Am Legend," where the monsters are now a sort of hybrid of vampires and zombies, and deviated greatly from the source material.  Yet, it's Charlton Heston's 1971 film that remains the go-to film, the most well known, and most well-respected - even though this film also deviates from the novel.

In the film, Heston's character injects himself with a cure to the biological agent released in the world, rendering him the only person immune to the virus.  As the world crumbled around him, he holed up in his home in Los Angeles, traveling by day to gather supplies and remained at home at night when the monsters roamed, searching for him.  These monsters - led by the charismatic yet wildly insane Matthias - sees Neville as the last lingering threat to their new way of living.  They don't want to make the same mistakes of the past, and set to eradicate the old ways - burning books, artwork, and refraining from any source of electricity or modern technology.

Neville finds a small group of survivors who haven't completely turned, and believes that using his blood he can cure them before they fall into madness.  He also meets Lisa, and the two begin a romantic relationship, being the first real female he's seen in over two years.

While the film is far from great (the monsters here are laughably inept at anything they do, plus they look ridiculous in their unifying robes), it's Charlton Heston that commands to be seen.  He was the most iconic actor of his time, and there's no one else in the world you'd expect would survive the end of it other than Heston (after all, he endured a planet of apes, and also portrayed Moses), and he manages to keep you riveted to the screen as he leads a solitary life.  Whether playing chess with a bust of Julius Caesar, driving down deserted streets in fancy cars, or watching the film "Woodstock" for the thousandth time, he keeps you entertained.

It's almost a shame he meets other survivors, because that's where his performance is weakest - he falls for Lisa without really knowing her, probably due to his severe loneliness, but this relationship is so forced and sudden it lacks any real chemistry (but kudos to director Boris Sagal for making his love interest African American, especially in a time where biracial relationships were still taboo).  There are some intriguing twists and turns the film delivers on, one which totally took me by surprise, and I feel that is why the film is so good - it makes you expect the unexpected, and gives you a central character that's fully developed and well-acted.

The cinematography is also a big plus for the film, especially when Neville is out on his own.  You see him walking down barren streets, and as the camera pans out, you really see how alone he is - in a once big thriving metropolis, you don't see another living person, and Neville's outline becomes almost invisible.  The most recent comparison for such a stunning shot comes from Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later," when Cillian Murphy is walking the streets of London alone.  Both give a stunning sense of loneliness and hopelessness.

The Summary:
While it could be cheesy at times, "The Omega Man" is still an intriguing film with a strong central character and twists and turns that leave you riveted, making for a great post-apocalyptic action thriller.

The Score: A+