I Am Legend DVD > Reviews > A good choice for the last man on earth

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Indifferent to it
Story	Satisfactory
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Good
How does it compare to similar films?	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Smith's performance
Disadvantages:	Plodded too much

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

When this film was released in 2007, I had no idea that it was in fact a remake. The screenplay was adapted from a novel by Richard Matheson, which was written in 1954. It was first seen on the big screen in 1964's "The Last Man On Earth", and then again in 1971's "Omega Man". Over 25 years later, reverting to the original title of the book, Will Smith stars in director Francis Lawrence's futuristic take on "I Am Legend". Smith is now an actor in possession of an Oscar, and having to carry the weight of this film alone was always going to prove to be a huge test. Personally, I like Smith, but I prefer his more comedic side, as to date I have not been convinced that he can play it totally straight, and as Robert Neville, a sole survivor of a viral epidemic living in New York, Smith needs to do just that, because jokes have no place here.

The film starts with a mammoth revelation that a cure has been found for cancer, based on the measles virus. The person behind this discovery, is the aptly named Dr Krippen, played by Emma Thomson. Fast forward 3 years to 2012, and it is soon clear that all is not well. This element of the story is told through flashbacks, and we see that the so called cure has come close to wiping out human existence. We see Neville sending his wife and child to what he hopes is a safe place, while he stays back with only the family dog Sam for company. The safe place never materialised, and Neville deals with this guilt on a daily basis. We soon discover that zombies rule after dark and during the day, military scientist Neville is on the hunt for the cure that will bring life back to some sort of normality. I wonder if this was really the vision Matheson had over 50 years ago.

I always find the empty streets of a main city such as New York (Vanilla Sky) or London (28 Days Later) really eerie, and they really strengthen the impact of the loneliness and loss felt by the survivor(s). The lack of music in these scenes is also a clever move from the director, as it adds to ambience. The take on how the city would look without the workers who take care of it daily was interesting....would weeds really come up through the cracks in the pavements? We see Neville make a daily radio broadcast for any fellow survivors, then going about his daily life. It is hard to even imagine how stifled you would feel, even though you had all of the space to yourself. To be honest, I believe someone in this position would most likely go insane, and not be as disciplined and focused for the length of time this character is. There are glimpses of that when he has full conversations with mannequins, but he does not stay in this mindset for long. For much of the film, Smith is alone until he meets fellow survivor Alice (Anna Braga). They have both escaped the virus as they are immune, and the key to Neville's research is discovering where and how people become immune, hence the need to use a lot of his blood to carry out these tests.

In terms of the film being a scary thriller, I felt it lacked in the scare element. There was only a brief revelation which made me jump slightly but other than that there was nothing visual, and certainly no mind games designed to scare you. That aside, the special effects and CGI where the zombies are concerned are very clever. Running at 1 hour 41 minutes, the film left me feeling a little cheated and disappointed. It was nothing to do with Smith's performance, which was very watchable, and which I thoroughly enjoyed. He is not the typical action hero, and he plays the emotion of the role well. It was the film as a whole, and more specifically the rushed and most unsatisfying ending. The pace just felt too slow, and it plodded through to the without really making me think or form much of an opinion. The ending came so out of the blue, it was like the writers got bored and decided to down tools! However, as the saying "not if you were the last man on earth" does not apply in this case, because Smith is a very fine specimen, so last man or not he would have a chance with me!!!!