The Last Man on Earth Movie Review

I don’t necessarily think that The Last Man on Earth (1964) should be required viewing, but if you appreciate films for their historical influence I think you’ll get some great insight with this Vincent Price classic. It has influenced modern movies in ways you will probably recognize when you see the movie.

In a post-epidemic world, Dr. Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the only survivor of a devastating world-wide plague which has transformed the entire population of Earth into vampire-like creatures. Now he’s alone; the last man on earth. At night, plague victims begin to leave graves, forming an undead army that thirsts for his blood. For his own protection, he becomes a vampire slayer that many vampires fear. After three years of solitude, he finds another human named Ruth (Franca Bettoja). Not only desperate for social interaction, he seeks her out to help him find a cure for the vampire virus. But Ruth doesn’t seem to be what she says she is. Can she be trusted?

The Last Man on Earth is based off of the1954 Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend. That novel has had several movies based off of it, including The Omega Man (1971) starring Charlton Heston and I Am Legend (2007) starring Will Smith. Of these three movies, The Last Man on Earth is the most faithful to the original book. The book is fairly dark, but since this film was made in 1964, there’s only so far the film industry would allow the film to go.

Vincent Price is clean shaven apart from his signature mustache, and wears a suit for most of the movie. That doesn’t really sell the “last man on earth” post-apocalyptic setting very well, but it is what it is. Price does a really great job showing us how damaged Dr. Morgan is after years without contact of another living soul. In one scene he is watching some old homemade film reels of his family. He begins laughing as he watches, but it’s kind of a haunting, empty laugh that portrays a deep sense of longing and sadness. As he laughs, it gradually turns into crying. We really get a feel that his years of solitude have taken their toll, and that this man is not well.

Possibly the most interesting and influential component is the “vampires.” At the time this movie was made, the best known vampire characters were Count Dracula and Count Orlok of the classic 1922 Nosferatu silent film. Both Dracula and Orlok were powerful demonic characters. Dracula was aristocratic, charming, and seductive while Orlok was a predatory ugly (albeit well dressed) walking corpse. The vampires in The Last Man on Earth were a type of movie vampire that had not been seen before. They were people who died from the disease, and then came back from the dead with a thirst for blood. They shambled around aimlessly, lacked rational thinking skills, and were capable of only rudimentary speech.

Sure, they were repelled by mirrors, garlic, and could be killed by a steak to the heart. But these vampires more closely resemble our contemporary paradigm of zombies. There’s a reason for that. George A. Romero was heavily influenced by The Last Man on Earth in writing and directing his iconic Night of the Living Dead which was released only four years later. The zombies in Night of the Living Dead were so influential that it set the standard for all zombie movies and video games forever after. Night of the Living Dead had a prodigious impact on zombie films, and it was The Last Man on Earth that heavily influenced Night of the Living Dead. We therefore have both of these films to attribute modern day zombie films and video games.

There are some problems in The Last Man on Earth. It is has some fairly slow pacing, a pretty low budget, leaves some narrative details unrefined, and the sketchy post-production dubbing makes it feel a bit unprofessional. All of that tends to undermine the story a bit, weakening its impact. I could understand not enjoying the movie all that much based on its substandard production, but I still think it’s a decent movie despite its weaknesses.

The Last Man on Earth was an interesting movie that had some good acting by the legendary Vincent Price. It’s the best cinema rendition of the I Am Legend novel; I liked it more than the Will Smith film. If you appreciate films for their historic influence, I highly recommend seeing The Last Man on Earth. If that’s not your cup of tea, I don’t expect you’ll enjoy it very much. You may like it if you enjoy zombie films since this is where our modern day zombie movie sprouted from.

The Last Man on Earth has fallen into public domain, which means the intellectual property rights have expired. What this means for you is that it is readily available for public use. If you want to see The Last Man on Earth, you can for free! You can follow the link below to watch it on YouTube. But you’ll get a sharper image if you can find it on DVD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibnpEk4hdjo

What is your favorite “Classic” vampire movie, not that “romantic” sparkly bullcrap variety? Comment below and tell me why!

Movie Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

We don’t seem to be getting a lot of original stories as of late. A lot of films seem to be based off of books, based off of comic books, based off an older movie, and even a few based off of TV shows. These are given labels like remake, reboot, and the nebulous label of “reimagining.” Batman was rebooted with Batman Begins(2005) and was such a success that it will be a long time before we accept a non-Christopher Nolan Batman. There was a recent 2010 remake of a 1981 fantasy movie, Clash of the Titans, by the same title. Director Tim Burton attempted to remake the 1968 sci-fi classic Planet of the Apes in 2001, which had a pretty negative critical reception. There were five original Planet of the Apes movies, followed by a live-action television series and an animated series. This was later followed by the Tim Burton monstrosity. Realistically, the first Planet of the Apesmovie starring Charlton Heston was the only good one of the lot, but the franchise has made a significant cultural impact. We seem to revere the original Planet of the Apeswith some degree of reverence and respect. This is why, when 20^th Century Fox produced yet another reboot entitled Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) directed by Rupert Wyatt, some of us cringed.

Will Rodman (James Franco) has a personal stake for developing a cure for Alzheimer’s disease; his afflicted father Charles (John Lithgow). When a chimpanzee shows remarkable progress with the latest strain of the cure, Will presents his findings to his boss, Jacobs (David Oyelowo), to show that the drug is ready for human trials. During the presentation, the chimp goes on a rampage and the Board of Directors pulls the plug on the program. It’s not until after the other test chimps were put down that they realized the rampaging chimp was protecting her infant. Unwilling to put down an infant chimp, Will takes it home to keep it safe. Charles has taken to reciting Shakespeare and incidentally names the infant Cesar. As Cesar grows up, it becomes evident that he has inherited the enhanced intelligence from his mother. Cesar reaches an unprecedented level of cognition and intelligence, and begins to question his own identity, wondering whether or not he is a pet. Will uses the cure he developed on his father, who ends up making a remarkable, but temporary, recovery. Will shows Jacobs the results and research begins again. Charles’ condition worsens and Cesar attacks a neighbor who is angry at Charles for attempting to drive the neighbor’s car. Cesar is sent to a primate facility by court order. Here he interacts with other apes for the first time in his life, and suffers some animal abuse by Dodge Landon (Tom Felton), one of the facility's workers. The abuse that Cesar endures causes him to resent some humans; he ends up leading a mass exodus and revolution against the humans.

If you look at any movie poster or website about Rise of the Planet of the Apes you see “Starring James Franco” plastered all over the place. Whoever did that can’t possibly have seen the movie. James Franco is really more of a supporting character. The main character is without a doubt Cesar. The motion capture for Cesar is done by none other than Andy Serkis; a phenomenal actor who played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Kong in Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake. Cesar’s character is actually quite complex and interesting. You can really empathize with what Cesar is going through, and relate to him when he’s finally had enough and chooses to revolt. Cesar isn’t out to kill the humans; he’s fighting for his freedom. He stops some of this fellow apes from killing some of the innocent bystanders, and he still has a relationship with Will. Cesar has to be one of the more interesting movie characters this summer. This is Cesar’s story, not Will Rodman’s.

It seems to me that the central theme in Rise of the Planet of the Apes is one of loss and abandonment. There is the often overused “man playing God” kind of theme where humans try to control the forces of nature and it blows up in their faces. Frankenstein (1931) and Jurassic Park (1993) are both examples of that theme. There’s also the premise of using potentially dangerous animals to try to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease; that is exactly the same premise in Deep Blue Sea (1999 where sharks are used instead of apes. In Rise of the Planet of the Apes Will is trying to prevent the loss of his father, in addition to trying to fight the government so he doesn’t have to abandon Cesar. Cesar on the other hand lost his mother at birth, he’s abandoned by Will, and he loses some friends during his revolution. Loss, abandonment, and not having someone to comfort you when you are subjected to cruelty are causes of emotional hurt that strikes a chord with the audience. I think that is what makes Cesar such an interesting and relatable character. Under the same circumstances, would we not feel sad, lonely, or angry enough to retaliate ourselves?

If you are a fan of the original Planet of the Apes movie, you’ll notice a few throwback references in this new adaptation. You’ll see Charlton Heston briefly appear on a TV, Cesar’s mother is called “bright eyes,” and Cesar is constructing a model of the Statue of Liberty in one scene. Tom Felton’s character, Dodge, gets the honor or delivering two of Heston’s most memorable lines from the 1968 film: “It’s a madhouse! A madhouse!” and “Take your stinkin’ paw off me you damn dirty ape!” I’m not so sure Tom Felton has earned an exalted enough status to speak such sacred lines on camera, but to his credit he delivers them well and the scenes in which they were spoken were very dramatic and powerful and even left me stunned for a moment. Generally a remade movie will make some references to the original movie that they are (in most cases) destroying. There are plenty of them here, but unlike some remakes, this one doesn’t beat you over the head with them. Other references are really subtle. The orangutan at the primate facility who befriends Cesar is named Maurice, a nod to the actor, Maurice Evans, who plays the orangutan, Dr. Zaius, in the original film. If you haven’t seen the original film, you won’t be missing anything important in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes was indeed a good movie. It was worthy of having the words “Planet of the Apes” in its title. It has interesting characters, a good storyline, great effects, and some nostalgic references in it. There is a big set up for a sequel, and I would welcome it; I left the theater wanting to know what would happen next to Cesar and his newly formed community of intelligent apes. I enjoyed this enough that I want to get a copy on Blu-Ray when it becomes available. If Tim Burton put you off of ever watching another Planet of the Apes movie, do your best to block it from your mind and go see Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Batman and Robin (1997) did precede Batman Begins, after all; a rebooted movie can do better than its predecessor.

So, did you see Rise of the Planet of the Apes? Did you like it? Did you not like it? Tell me why. What is your favorite ape movie you’ve ever seen? Comment below!