User Reviews

Cancer has been cured by genetically modifying the measles virus to benefit mankind – the results are impressive. However the downside is that the virus mutates killing 90% of humanity, turning 9% into light-phobic monsters and leaving only 1% untouched due to natural immunity. Robert Neville is one of that 1% and also the military biochemist charged with stopping the virus but he has failed and now is the only person alive in what remains of NYC. Working on a cure in his basement and broadcasting fruitlessly into the sky, Neville spends his days surviving and his nights hiding.

Despite my fear of most zombie style films, I came to I Am Legend drawn mostly by the interest in the effects. Having been impressed by an empty London in 28 Days Later, I was curious to see what more money could do. In terms of impact the answer is "the same" but in terms of scale it is "much more". New York looks amazing and even those who only know it from films will feel the emptiness of the place. The irony is that, due to the sheer scale of it, visually it looks "unreal" whereas the smaller scale 28 Days Later was just plain eerie as it involved nothing generated by computer. This will sound like a criticism but it is not because I do think that this sense of emptiness is the thing that makes I Am Legend excellent for part of the running time.

The effects are only part of it but roundly the delivery makes this aspect work. The plot sits back and lets us just be with Neville in his isolation and semi-madness; talking to manikins, treating his dog as a child and so on. This is greatly helped by a performance from Will Smith that is close to towering; he is utterly convincing in his character and the film brings us an understand of his situation gradually. As we get used to his eccentric lifestyle, the reality is brought home in a moment where he goes from sun to a sweat soaked scene in a dark room, a brilliant moment where we the audience experience the fear he is living with first hand.

So why is the film itself not brilliant? Well, this comes down to the second half or so where the writers start to take steps to bring out a narrative that will go somewhere in the traditional sense rather than exploring the character of Neville as its sole reason for being. In doing this the script made many jumps that were convenient, illogical or just plain lazy and it is disappointing. Bear in mind that this is a film that had managed to convince me that the majority of humanity was dead due to Emma Thompson, the man responsible for finding the cure was one of the few left alive and that New York was completely empty – I never questioned any of this so how much of a dropped ball is it to suddenly introduce a narrative that has the audience looking at each other saying "yeah right"? It is not as bad as I make it sound though because at this point the action steps up and provides sufficient noise and explosions that perhaps many viewers will find themselves distracted away from the problems with the story telling. However these are too obvious and too big and contrast badly with the patience and emptiness of the first half and, with the rush to a conclusion the film does really feel like the majority of the work was done on the concept and this plot was an afterthought. The writers don't help themselves with some of the dialogue anyway. Having got it so perfect with so little early on, a massive shoehorn is used to get Bob Marley in there – one of several things that conspire to undermine all the good character development that had been done in the first half.

Overall though the film is worth seeing. The first half is very impressive thanks to patience, special effects and a very strong turn from Smith. Sadly the second half lets it all down as the plot devices used to provide a tradition flow and ending are clumsy and unconvincing and the noisy action sequences that are produced didn't manage to distract me from them.

I Am Legend was the best looking film release for early December; I was looking forward to it, like many others I am sure. So I saw I Am Legend tonite with my boyfriend, now after the movie we just looked at each other and had that disappointed look and then the audience just looked around and just walked out grunting and I heard nothing but "that was a waste of money". That's definitely not a good thing. I think the problem was definitely the script, the story was not explained well as well as the character development needed improvement. The way that I Am Legend was shot very well, it had a very isolated and cold feeling. Will Smith does a fine job of acting; his best though? Not so much. The story also took a strange turn from Sci-Fi to religion towards the end. Not to mention, was this a zombie film? I don't know, because it was never explained.

Robert Neville is a scientist who is the last man alive in New York City. A cure of cancer has gone horribly wrong and killed off almost 90% of the human population. The cure has turned people rabid and has made them feed on humans. Robert has lost his family in trying to get them out of New York during the evacuation, but he is dedicated to finding a cure for this virus. Along with his only companion, his dog, Samantha, he has to survive this scary and isolated world and try to find the last survivors before he goes insane or gets attacked by these creatures.

I Am Legend had good ideas, like I said, the script just needed major work. Like with Robert's flash backs, it seemed like they just stopped the story at that point and didn't explain how the rest of the population died out and how he was really the ONE and ONLY person who survived New York's virus. I know he said he was immune, but no one else was? Major spoiler: they killed his dog off almost in the beginning of the film which didn't seem right to me. I Am Legend is one of the year's biggest disappointments with me, I guess not everything Will Smith touches is gold. If you want to see I Am Legend, please just expect a lot of confusion and not much of a story, I am very disappointed.

4/10

Hollywood has never had much luck adapting science fiction author Richard Matheson's cult 1954 novel "I Am Legend" successfully for the screen. Iconic horror movie star Vincent Price headlined the first version; the Italian-lensed "The Last Man on Earth" (1964) ranked as an austere, but depressing widescreen, black & white epic with vampire/zombies as our hero's antagonists. Call them zompires! Price impersonated a valiant scientist, Robert Morgan, with an acquired immunity to a deadly virus that had devastated mankind. Morgan struggled desperately not only to survive acute loneliness but also to cure the survivors. Full-frame copies of this opus are available everywhere in DVD bargain box sets. Not-surprisingly, Price perished in the end.

Charlton Heston retooled the role for the 1971 remake, "The Omega Man," released by Warner Brothers. Heston turned immunologist Robert Neville into a brawny, bare-chested, romantic, action stud hero who cavorted in a blue flight suit with a dress uniform cap complete with scrambled eggs on the visor. Watch "The Omega Man" and see if Neville doesn't resemble a Marvel Comics character. Naturally, Heston brought the messianic allure that he had gained from "The 10 Commandments" and "Ben-Hur" to the role. Along the way, Heston's Neville indulged in one of the first interracial big-screen romances with African-American actress Rosalind Cash. An army of heavily robed, non-vampiric mutants led by Matthias (Anthony Zerbe) triumphed over him, and he died tragically as a misunderstood Christ figure.

Will Smith fares even worse in the third and least well-done version, "I Am Legend" which finally uses the original title of Matheson's novel. Essentially, Smith imitates the Heston hero as a weapons reliant action hero/virologist. They differ in how they contend with loneliness. Heston played chess with a bust of Julius Caesar and fed images of himself via a surveillance camera onto a big-screen television. Smith's Neville dresses up mannequins at a local video rental store and converses with them when he selects a movie. Unlike both Price and Heston, Smith doesn't enjoy a post-apocalyptic romance. Instead of female companionship, Smith has to settle for a German shepherd; canine lovers are warned ahead of time to expect the worst. Even when a woman, Anna (Alice Braga of "City of God"), does show up near the end, our hero doesn't take the time to sweep her off her feet.

Generally, the problem with all three movies is that the star has to bear the movie on his shoulders for the brunt of the action. Remember that hideous Tom Hanks' movie "Castaway?" Half of "I Am Legend" looks like "Castaway" with Will Smith performing monologues devoid of humor. Sadly, despite a strong performance, Smith has to confront adversaries that neither Price nor Heston contended with—namely, colorless, chrome-domed, computer-generated cannibals. "I Am Legend" forfeits any semblance of dramatic impact, much as "I, Robot" did, with its cartoon-like CGI villains. Smith wages an eternal war against video game antagonists who cannot speak, making them dim-witted, lowest-common-denominator dolts.

"I Am Legend" opens on an ironic note. Scientists have discovered a cure for cancer. Things go incredibly amiss, however, and Dr. Krippen (an unbilled Emma Thompson of "Sense and Sensibility") winds up unleashing a man-made virus in the year 2009 that transforms humanity into homicidal mutants that plunder and destroy everything in sight. Incidentally, these mutants don't appear until midway in the movie after scenarists Mark Protosevich of "Poseidon" and Akiva Goldman of "Batman & Robin" have established Smith's character and his predicament. The filmmakers rely on occasional flashbacks to fracture that storyline and show how Smith became the last man on Earth. We learn that his wife (Salli Richardson of TV's "Eureka") and daughter (Smith's real-life daughter Willow) died in a helicopter collision around the same time that the military quarantined Manhattan Island and sealed off access to it. The military destroy the two landmark Big Apple bridges, but Neville (Will Smith) vows to remain at ground zero and devise a cure.

Three years later, in 2012, Neville and his dog venture outside by day to search for non-infected survivors as well as to forage for food and lock themselves up at night. In an early scene, Neville hunts for fresh meat by pursuing escaped zoo animals through the cluttered, weed-choked canyons of Manhattan in a red Ford Mustang with a high powered rifle. He watches old television shows that he has recorded before the apocalypse while he eats. The mutants themselves are not very interesting. In "Last Man on Earth," the mutants were vampire/zombies that besieged the hero's house at night. In "The Omega Man," the villains were the equivalent of albino Klansmen that terrorized the streets after dark and clashed constantly with Neville.

Like the previous versions, "I Am Legend" delivers a dour, downbeat ending that will bum you out beyond belief. The special effects are shoddy and superficial; the villains emerge as a mob of one-dimensional, head-banging morons, and the hero degenerates into an ignoble, unsympathetic, atheistic lout. There is nothing exciting or suspenseful about our hero's late-night encounter with the mutants on the docks where he uses his SUV as a weapon to smash them. Even more implausible is the way that he gets out of this cliffhanger confrontation. "Constantine" director Francis Lawrence provides several startling, gotcha-by-the-gullet, scare scenes that will frighten the squeamish, but seasoned gorehounds won't find anything different or dazzling about this drivel.

Will Smith's track record with science fiction is faltering badly these days. "I Am Legend" is nowhere near as memorable or entertaining as either "Independence Day" or his "Men in Black" movies. Instead, "I Am Legend" is legendarily lame!

Normally I have an opinion on a movie when it's over, I can reflect on it for a few minutes and then I'm done with. It becomes cataloged in my brain as 'awesome' 'pretty good' 'worst.movie.ever.' or a host of other standard issue classifications.

Not so with 'I Am Legend.' I can't recall the last time I was this frustrated by a movie.

It had so much potential to be so great, and then just fell apart in the last third of the movie with every summer blockbuster/zombie movie cliché known to man, run one after the other.

The movie creates a fantastic atmosphere of post-apocalyptic New York and requires your patience as Will Smith's character begins to unravel as the monsters around him begin to become more aggressive and intelligent. Before heading out to see the movie, I did some research on the book the movie is based on and the reason it is such a well known classic story is because of the twists, perspectives and grim ending. What you find out towards the book is that Neville really is the last man on Earth, and the rest of society are now these zombie/vampires, and Neville's ability to walk around in the daylight and kill them has basically made him the monster. He is the one feared by them, he is the villain, and they will stop at nothing to eradicate this day walker who preys on them.

Keeping that in mind, I was super impressed by how the movie seemed to be heading in that direction with that head Zombie guy's heated animosity towards Neville as if it were personal (and perhaps the zombie Neville captured were his significant other, thus lending the zombies an actual 'society), and not merely 'meee hungry for flesh.' The movie basically went right down the tubes when Will Smith decided after he had to kill his dog that he was going to go on a suicide mission at the docks playing Destruction Derby with his Explorer. All of the haunting, edge-of-your-seat suspense and fear created brilliantly with the scene in the abandoned bank, and with the zombie dogs clamoring for the last sliver of daylight to cede, and creepy subtle atmospheric effects throughout went right out the darn window and we suddenly found ourselves in '28 Days Later.' With some random chick coming out of nowhere to somehow scare off 100 angry zombies (who had just blown his UV truck to hell mind you; but apparently she had outfitted a better one than an incredibly resourceful Military Soldier/Scientist), carry Will Smith, who weighs twice as much as her, into her car, and somehow drive them to safety.

So we find ourselves in an incredibly uncomfortable scenario with the Brazilian chick and her creepy Columbine son, and some Bob Marley metaphors laid on top of terrible dialog. Then, instead of a suspense-ridden in-the-dark atmospheric climax, with heavy breathing, flashes of gore, heart pounding scene, we're left with cheesy CG explosions, zombies body slamming people, no one keeping a gun on them when there's about 50 scattered across the house, and other usual stupid horror/action movie miss-steps.

We finally find ourselves with Neville, back against the wall, Zombie leader separated from Smith's neck by a rapidly deteriorating inch of glass and I'm hoping the movie will be somehow salvaged with a great twist, a grim conclusion, or at worst, a convoluted piece of foreshadowing from the first twenty minutes of the movie being pulled out of the scriptwriters pie hole to be played out here. (I personally thought he could have awakened the zombie girl he was curing and seen if the reaction of the intelligent zombie would have caused a reaction, or if some communication could have been made between Neville and his antagonist who at this point we've come to realize is moderately intelligent). I'm an idiot for expecting anything but 'yo, hide in the chimney while i blow myself up.' Don't even get me started on the Utopian Vermont safe-haven, seriously. You're going to tell me 1 million zombies couldn't overrun some 20 foot walls spanning what would approximate 2 miles of land? Christ. I could have written a better ending in 20 minutes on the back of a cocktail napkin.

"I Am Legend," an inexplicable remake of the Charlton Heston minor classic "The Omega Man", posits itself as another mass-marketed star vehicle for the always likable Will Smith. Here the mega-star who can do no wrong plays the last man on earth (SPOILER: HE'S NOT!) after a nasty virus wipes out the world population and leaves behind some infected sourpusses in the vein of "28 Days Later". This movie has all the key ingredients for a Will Smith box office behemoth (which no doubt it will be), but fails to engage on any higher level.

Here's the recipe:

1. Will Smith playing Will Smith: No other movie star can be such an egotistical show-off and get away with it as well as Will Smith does. No matter how many times we see him do his funny little bits, show off his buff bod, or watch him stretch his acting muscle with an unnecessary emotional breakdown scene, the audience still loves him. He carries "I Am Legend" and makes it watchable even when he starts doing a "Shrek" impersonation (don't ask) or carries on conversations with mannequins (think Tom Hanks and Wilson the volleyball from "Cast Away").

2. A futuristic setting: The set designers do a fantastic job here with a post-apocalyptic New York tableau that is expansive and eerie and will leave you wondering, "How in blue blazes did they film that?" Sadly, the special effects team and creature designers didn't do a complimentary job. The zombie/vampire/whatever-the-heck-they-are monsters look like something from a second rate video game circa 1999. Given the PG-13 rating, they are only allowed a moderate amount of fun. Gore hounds and horror buffs will be greatly disappointed. Sci-fi fans will also be angered that after a decent set-up, the film devolves into a preachy messianic family-friendly death-fetish film.

3. A kick-ass dog: Remember how everyone rooted for that dog from "Independence Day?" Well, this German Sheperd named Sam puts that dog to shame. However, you know there's a problem when the dog becomes the most dynamic and sympathetic character in a film. I won't carelessly give away what happens to Sam in any explicit detail, but suffice it to say, when two non-characters named Anna and Ethan show up in the film's final moments, you'll be wishing Sam was there to keep it real.

"I Am Legend" offers nothing new but is diverting enough as a matinée. In its depiction of a man and a dog in a post-apocalyptic city, it scores as populist entertainment. As a monster movie, it's a joke. As some sort of end-of-the-world message film, it's abhorrent. But with Will Smith headlining, expect it to be the biggest hit of the holiday season.

The problem with filming Matheson's I AM LEGEND is that the original novel is so difficult to adapt for the silver screen . The novel deals with the last man alive - Neville - who is surrounded by vampires . There's little spoken dialogue and perhaps most problamatic of all is the fact that Neville is effectively the villain meaning that a cinema audience have to identify and empathise with a bad guy maliciously killing benign vampires . Obviously this is a step too far for a mainstream audience so any film producer filming this story needs to make Neville a good guy thereby destroying Matheson's original concept . I suppose movie studio's can justify themselves by the need to make a profit at the box office but there's other flaws that are impossible to tackle

First of all there's the lack of dialogue . Respected reviewers on this site including Bob The Moo have praised the first half of the movie with the isolation of Neville's lonely life as he drives through an empty New York but a story needs character interaction and a protagonist needs someone to talk to and the dialogue light , slow deliberate pace becomes very boring after a while and it's not helped by the lack of a soundtrack . Danny Boyle was much more effective with his dead London scenes in 28 DAY LATER

There is a character for Neville to talk to but it's not actually a human character - it's a dog . You know as soon as the dog is introduced it won't be seeing the end credits and so lack lustre screenwriter Akiva Goldsman mawkishly manipulates the audience in to feeling sorry for Fido when he becomes infected and has to be killed . It's so predictable certain audience members will have to stifle a yawn rather than reach for a tissue to dry their eyes

Even those people who have praised the first half have criticised the second half where we have characters who are introduced out of the blue . There's a lack of logic to this . The characters are aware that there's a sanctuary somewhere so why didn't these characters make a beeline for the sanctuary instead of sitting around hoping to get a radio message from Neville ? You'd think they were clairvoyants , either that or Goldsman is a rather insipid screenwriter

The other problem of the second half is when the infected/mutants/vampires are introduced . There is not one scene as far as I recall where the infected are never anything more than laughably bad CGI effects . It's ridiculous that this film supposedly cost $150 million and the director couldn't employ a few dozen extras in make up . Really if was a " walk on artiste " I would be angry about the use of CGI seen here

I AM LEGEND is a near impossible story to adapt but the producers should have at least tried to focus on what type of audience the film was produced for . It's not really a film does the book justice , nor is it one that will really appeal to fans of the post apocalyptic genre . There's also a distinct lack of action and tension and dare I say much entertainment . Despite its many flaws THE OMEGA MAN is a very entertaining movie and much superior to this remake

Is it me, or does every movie that portrays the future, it's always some post-apocalyptic setting or the fall of man with man itself to blame? Not a lot to look forward to is it? Anyways, after years of being let down by so called scary zombie/virus movie genres and other blockbuster thriller debacles, "I Am Legend" really separates itself from the group.

Without giving too much way, Will Smith plays a sole survivor of a world dominating virus created by man that was originally created to cure cancer. Three years into the "new" world, Smith (who was a former doctor) dedicates his life to survival, finding a cure....and talking to mannequins. In order to find a cure he seeks out the infected, who only come out at night, and hoping to correct man's mistake.

"Legend" was the first truly scary movie I've seen in some time. Realism is the main factor in scary movies in my opinion. If it can happen, than that's pretty scary. Also, Smith's portrayal of despair and borderline insanity of three years of seclusion added to the effect. With the exception of his dog, Smith had no live contact with constant failure attempts of his cure only leading to his insanity. It had a "Cast Away" feel to it with his dog as to Hank's volleyball and his house reminding you of that stranded island.

The action/suspense scenes coupled with superb sound direction were also heart pounding and unexpected which added to the "scare" factor. Whenever Smith engaged with the zombie-like survivors, there was that claustrophobic feeling that I haven't felt since "Alien." My only real complaint was the overuse of CGI over real actors for these characters, but with their speed and strength that these things showed if may have not been possible.

"Legend" overall is one of the better movies of 2007 and a must see. Not Oscar-worthy by any stretch of the imagination, but it's certainly entertaining, realistically tense and maybe even thought provoking.

This movie just got worse as it went along. It started out interesting with Will Smith walking around a deserted New York City. He had man's best friend-- a dog-- right by his side. I'd have given it a seven at that point because it was interesting. The minute he walked into the dark to get his dog, I already knew there were "creatures" in the dark, so it was just annoying at that point. I don't like looking at black screen. If I want to look at darkness, I can stay home and turn off the light. This is where I drop the movie down to a six. Creatures in the dark don't interest me. I've seen it before. Then we have to suffer through vague flashbacks and Will Smith talking to mannequins as if they are alive. I was bored with that, but I went along. So we have this brilliant scientist that can juggle microbiology, rigging explosions, hunting for wild game, guns, installing metal doors and gates. This guy can do it all, but he's amazed when he injects one of the creatures and it isn't healed within 5 minutes. I'm no genius, but even I know that cures take time. So I have to ignore the fact a very learned person is an idiot disguised.

Will Smith's character goes the whole movie looking miserable because he's alone, yet a young lady and a kid are surviving fine. They show up and all he does is argue with them.

The creatures have enough social structure to keep their dogs on a leash, but they can't stay calm two seconds otherwise. Why is it that fictional creatures only eat the healthy people. They'll chew their way through a ceiling, but they won't attack each other. What were they eating? The most merciful scene in the movie is when the dog dies. The friend I was with said the movie should have ended there. If it had, I'd give it a 7. Unfortunately didn't, so the best I can give it is a four. I kept wondering if the CGI for the dogs was leftover from some other movie.

This is just my opinion, but heroes and legends don't earn their status by being lucky. The hero in this movie is inept. What happened to heroes having providence? They should have the ability to walk into a dismal situation and fix it because that is who and what they are.

On top of everything else, there appears to be a Christian theme tossed in. It is a hero trying to save the lost. That would be okay if there was some interesting plot, but there isn't.

This movie is not worth buying or renting. Save your money. The visuals are interesting at the start, but it goes nowhere.

In 2012, the American scientist and colonel Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the unique healthy survivor in Manhattan, missing his beloved wife and daughter, died in a deadly accident. The human race deceased or became mutants living in the dark due to the outbreak of a virus intended to cure cancer. Dr. Robert Neville keeps a routine life for his own survival with his dog Sam, fighting against his loneliness to maintain mentally sane, and entirely committed in researching an experimental vaccine using his own immune blood to get the cure in the laboratory in the basement of his hideout. When Robert attacked by a large group of "Darkseekers", he is rescued by Anna (Alice Braga), another survivor that arrived in Manhattan with the boy Ethan after listening to a message broadcasted by Robert. Her intention is to head to a sanctuary in Vermont, but Robert is reluctant to leave the ground zero and his researches. However his shelter is located by the mutants that break into the place with tragic consequences.

When I was a teenager, "The Omega Man" (1971) was a very successful film in the movie theaters and I probably have seen this movie about ten times along my life. In my opinion, it is one of the best Apocalyptic Sci-Fi movies of the 70's (together with 'Soylent Green'), when the world had the cold war to threaten and the population had a great fear of a biological weapons. A couple of years ago, I saw the original "The Last Man on Earth" (1964), a frightening and dark view of the fate of mankind. In those years, the preoccupation with radiation and biological weapons due to the cold war leaded people to this type of fear and preoccupation.

Both versions are great movies because Richard Matheson's novel "I Am Legend" is excellent. Therefore my expectations with this new remake was the greatest possible, especially because of the name of Will Smith in the role of Robert Neville. Unfortunately this version is the weakest among the three foregoing movies. The director Francis Lawrence forgot that a movie is not only explosions and special effects and wasted the opportunity to make a great film. The strong and fast creatures are ridiculous when compared with the zombies in "The Last Man on Earth" or the dark sect leaded by Mathias in "The Omega Man". Further, the alternative ending on DVD is something ridiculous. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Eu Sou a Lenda" ("I Am the Legend")

Having gone out last night at 11:59pm to see this movie on its debut in my local area I was excited and positive of mind in sitting down to view it. I love end of the world disaster type movies, when they are good or interesting and was looking forward to losing myself in a well thought out fantasy world.

Sadly "I Am Legend" was so preoccupied with doing every cliché thing one could think of in this kind of movie that it missed on every count any possibility of being interesting or even tense, and instead was trite, boring, egotistical cliché, and just plain stupid.

I loved Will Smith in "Enemy of the State" which is one of my all-time favorite movies, but Will Smith has a tendency to overact and with the dumbed down corny script this movie was not even bad enough to be funny.

The premise of the story is only lightly explained, and that could have been an interesting plot twist, but apparently they thought the audience for this movie would be morons, so it is was all about Will Smith talking to the dog, and hanging out, trying to look like a world renowned scientist ... hahahaha. Yet he could have pulled it off with a better script and a deeper story.

The scenes of the empty dead city were great, but often ruined with the bad computer graphic effects which were overused and poor. Also, the bad guys, the zombies, whatever you wanted to call them were supercharged hyped up remakes of the robots in I-Robot, it was so obvious I almost laughed, and they did the most stupid things. They were not believable at all ...

Go see the "Omega Man" with Charleton Heston, that is an absorbing movie that will not turn your stomach or put you to sleep. Even "28 Days Later" is good, but avoid like the plague the new "28 Months Later". What is with Hollywood, who cares if the writers go on strike when they write garbage like this?

Just finished a pre-screening here and I'm actually pretty disappointed. The first half of the movie was great and started to build something interesting despite the glaring lack of any background regarding the story. Yes, I realize that you get a few flashbacks but the writers decided not to include any flashbacks of how the disease started, no clips of people progressing through the stages of illness, in essence, everything that led to the point Will Smith ultimately arrived at.

*SPOILER ALERT* While this certainly was a drawback, it is nothing compared to the non-events that surrounded the relationship between Smith's character and what seemed to be the head of the vampire/zombie/darkstalkers. Just as the plot was beginning to develop between them, the film took an epic dive right around the time Smith's dog died. There was absolutely no further development and even though the darkstalkers seem to show some intelligence and evolution, the movie is concluded with their leader banging his head against the glass and screaming like an idiot. It all leads to an ending that seems like a cop-out and left me feeling wholly unsatisfied. *End Spoilers*

There were definitely some great parts, the cinematography was fantastic and the computer generated scenes of a dilapidated and "uninhabited" New York were amazing. It most certainly was scary and there were times that made me jump though the animation on the darkstalkers was not particularly impressive; in fact, it reminded me a lot of the movie "The Mummy" with Brendan Frasier. Smith once again proved himself a very capable and believable actor. The first half is great, though the second will definitely leave you with a bad taste in your mouth. My advice: leave halfway through and you won't be disappointed!

This version of the classic book is certainly well-made. And Will Smith shines as never before, in a virtual solo performance. Unfortunately, in tossing out the original, brilliant ending of the book, the filmmakers have not only abandoned the entire justification for the exercise (not to mention for the title), they've failed to substitute any of their own. The resulting experience is not unlike watching a film called Tale of Two Cities that does NOT end with Sidney Carton doing a "far, far better thing"... or a remake of Citizen Kane in which Rosebud unaccountably turns out to be Kane's chauffeur.

The film is thus doubly disappointing. Not only does Hollywood cop out on Matheson's profound and widely-admired philosophical observation, it concocts a story that violates every precept of Drama 101. The initial two-thirds of the film presents Matheson's original character arc; the final one-third veers off wildly, and fails to pay off in any way on the lead-up. Conversely, nothing in the conclusion is properly foreshadowed, hence the ending can only seem arbitrary, contrived and unsatisfying. Yet another mindless Spielbergian Deus ex Machina.

Thus, what could easily have been one of the truly great achievements in SF film ends up being merely a rather poor B movie -- slick, action-packed and momentarily diverting... yet ultimately hollow, bland and forgettable. I suspect it will be left to the Brits to make a proper version of I Am Legend one day; Hollywood has once again proved it hasn't the guts -- nor even the basic dramatic skills.

I am legend is a very predictable story of what happens when an engineered cure for cancer turns malign. The resulting virus, which mostly resembles rabies, kills most of the population worldwide, except for some 500 million that turn into... of course, a sort of werewolves that feed on the remaining million that are immune. This in itself is a very worn out and unrealistic theme by now and the werewolf angle only makes it more silly.

Our 'hero' is living in the remains of a big city (NY) and luckily for us he is a biological engineer working for the military. In his house he has a laboratory (¿) to find a cure, which he has time for, when he is not out shooting deer, weredogs and -wolves, or is engaged in another boring 'activity'. The dramatic height of the movie is when his dog dies, which had about the same impact on me as when i see i stepped on an ant; boring. There is hardly any character development and well, it's Will Smith, which usually plays Will Smith. The acting is mediocre, at best.

The camera-work is less than mediocre. There are too many scenes that play in the dark, so you can just guess whats going on, which is not so hard, because its all terribly predictable. They spent way too much money on the making of this movie, for it to look so bad. It may be nice if you live in NY to see what your city would become, but to me that means nothing. (and why is there a Lockheed SR71 blackbird on an aircraft carrier? The thing can't land there and they've been out of use for quite a while now *edit* i found it is Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, in NY. Nice if you live in NY and know these things, otherwise useless *end edit*). I watch a movie to see nice images, not 15 minutes of utter darkness...

The end comes pretty hastily with a few narrated lines that should give the whole thing meaning. Should, but doesn't. Along the way there are a few lines that attempt to give it some depth, as in philosophical truths or meaning of which the best is: 'I didn't do it, we did', i want to reply; 'no really, you did!'

I think they tried to copy the i robot feel-style with the music of Bob Marley (Was stevie wonder in I Robot) and they added an anecdote of Bob to give it some 'depth'. Bob was great at making music, but that doesn't imply he was a great philosopher. In the Netherlands we have Johan Cruyff, maybe you heard of him; an ex great football (soccer) player which tends to say things in the media. So now he is quoted for his 'wise' saying: "Every disadvantage has it's advantage" (pronounced with Amsterdam accent for dramatic effect). Goes to show that someone great in one field isn't necessarily great in another.

As for humor, there isn't any. I think they tried a few times... "I wanted to save the bacon".... but... no.

Very, very disappointing movie. I even wanted to stop watching a number of times, but didn't because i kept hoping a movie with Will Smith in it would get better at some point. It only got worse.

My advise: You can miss this one. There are a lot of better movies already made about virus outbreaks and apocalypses. Watch one of those again, saves money and its less boring. Unless of course you want to be apocalypticly bored.

Years ago, THE OMEGA MAN scared the bejeezus out of me, then again, I was young and even seeing somewhat dated visions of an empty world and rather badly done shots of people collapsing from a viral attack, still scared me. I AM LEGEND, which is the third movie based on the Matheson book, I Am Legend, really is scary for the here and now and thanks to some inventive photography and CG effects, we see a grim but fascinating vision of a completely abandoned New York City from the get-go. A well intentioned virologist Dr Krippen(played uncredited by Emma Thompson) in a news clip as the film's opening production tags play, shows a quick "human interest" story as a TV host talks innocently(and somewhat disbelievingly) with her, about her success with "curing cancer with a genetically engineered 'friendly' Measles virus" and that this was administered to over 10,000 cancer patients who are now "Cancer free". Cut to three years later and a dead, overgrown NYC with Will Smith speeding around it in a new Mustang(In THE OMEGA MAN, Chuck Heston sped around LA in a new 1972 Mustang, one of the film's many homages to it's predecessor) we see the extent of Krippen's horrible mistake to mess with and trust the nature of viruses-which can do mutate without prediction. Will Smith is Robert Neville, military virologist who witnessed the end of mankind-he's watching a tape of news as the illness begins to mutate and media is becoming alarmed. Krippen's Virus had a bizarre side effect-it mutated and became a contagious, airborne rabies-like illness that either kills outright or drives it's victims to become rage-filled, blood/fluid drinking mutants who hide in the shadows and only come out at night. (In THE OMEGA MAN it turned them into psychotic hippies called "The Family" styled after Charles Manson who was still hot news at the time-films are products of their own time) The virus spread very fast as we see in quick flashbacks(Omega Man was told in several flashbacks as effective). Mannequins play a role in THE OMEGA MAN, and they do in I AM LEGEND.

It is Smith's amazing acting talent that holds one riveted. It did me. The "mutants" are styled after the running infected in 28 DAYS LATER the only difference-and the film's drawback-is that too much CGI is used here and we're now so used to seeing CG in movies, that it appears that is what it is. In 28 DAYS LATER and it's sequel 28 WEEKS LATER, dancers were used as the running, screaming rage infected victims to much better effect. The CG FX shine in the visions of a ruined NYC, with grass and weeds everywhere, wildlife roaming, and destroyed bridges thanks to the military quarantine of the city. Obviously, it did little good as we overhear in a flashback, the President saying that "every major world city has taken the same action". Smith reminds us later, in dialog, "nothing was supposed to happen the way it did" It's a frightening vision, and I think the point being made was if, in reality, the Bird Flu hit and became easy to transmit, such scenes of sheer pandemonium, in larger cities would not be so much fiction. It's a terrific film.