Tyler McElhenny- The Jacket, I Am Legend, Iron Man

In class we discussed the movie The Jacket and how Adrien Brody’s character, Jack, was symbolizing Christ. I found myself trying to think of other movies that portray Christ through their own characters. In I Am Legend, Will Smith plays Robert Neville, a doctor, which decides he is the “chosen one” to find a cure for an illness that has turned everyone into horrific zombies. Like Jack in The Jacket, Dr. Neville ends up sacrificing himself in order to save others. I would argue that Tony Stark in the Iron Man films is also symbolic of Christ. After been ambushed by a terrorist group, the world believes that Tony Stark has been killed. He is actually being held as a prisoner, and is being forced to create one of his many weapons of mass destruction. He creates the plan to build his Iron Man suit and escape. He does so successfully and then continues to fight off villains. In a sense, he is saving others by sacrificing himself. While watching The Jacket, I didn’t see Jack as a Christ figure. After the class discussion, I was able to see the similarities and tried to apply those to other films I had seen. Both I Am Legend and Iron Man portray their main characters as saviors, and illustrate that without them, life as we know it might not exist.