I Am Legend Movie Review

In I Am Legend, Will Smith plays genius scientist Robert Neville who is the last man on Earth after a sure-thing cancer cure turns into a plague-like virus and wipes out the rest of the population. Almost. A small portion of the infected live and become these inhuman zombie monsters that only come out at night and seek any food available, including those still not infected.

This movie initially surprised me because what it is all about is much different than the advertising made it out to be. I was under the impression that it was going to be a survival movie with a few scares, kind of like a poor man's Cast Away. However, as it turns out, it is much more a horror flick than a survival tale. I'm sure that marketing was to draw a larger crowd, and I'm glad, because I saw it with Hayley and she would NOT have gone if she knew it was going to be that scary. It really freaked her out.

Anyways, Will Smith was great as the lone lead. He was the only one on screen for 85% of the movie (if you don't count the CGI zombies), and while he was no Tom Hanks in Cast Away, I think he did a really good job. I've always thought he was a good actor, but he's really proving himself lately. I'm not sure many actors could have pulled this off, but he did. A few memorable scenes come to mind, like when he was trying to muster the courage to hit on a mannequin. (Hey, the man has been alone for 3 years, so what if he's gone a little crazy.)

Now, the first two acts of this movie were solid. In the first, we learn who he is, his situation, and all about how he's made as close to a regular life as one could living alone in a city full of flesh-eating monsters. He drives around, watches movies, hunts with his dog, and continually works on a cure for the disease that he's immune from. It's fun watching how he's made New York City his own personal playground. In the second act, we learn about the "dark seekers" as they're called, and are first exposed to them in a really suspenseful and scary way. I won't ruin anything, but it's very nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat type stuff.

However, as we approach the third act, the movie seems to slump to the lows of cliche horrors with cheap scares and bad plot. Once we really see the dark seekers, and other characters are introduced, it just falls apart, and unfortunately that happens with most movies like this.

This movie works very well for the first half, and I would have much rather have spent more time seeing Smith's character's way of life in the beginning and being exposed to the FEAR of the dark seekers than actually seeing them and going through all that. Smith did a great job, and I think if you're looking for a good scare (Hayley had nightmare's, so it's pretty scary), and want to inject some fun into the clump of Oscar-season movies, see this one. I recommend it.

On the Reganometer, I give I Am Legend a 6 out of 10.