I Am Legend

After an attempt to cure cancer backfires and kills off 90% of the Earth's population and turns all but 1% of the remaining into super strong/agile zombie like creatures, Robert Neville (Will Smith), a army scientist is left alone in New York City trying desperately to discover a cure. His only companion is his dog, Sam and a number of mannequins he has set up all over town. Neville spends his days foraging for food, keeping in shape, hunting, and experimenting in his lab for the cure. Night and dark places are off limits since the infected come out once the sun is down.

Based ever so loosely on a novella by Richard Matheson, I Am Legend starts off very well. We are shown a New York that has began to revert back to nature but still retains some of the clutter of human activity: abandoned cars, billboards and so forth. The film takes some time establishing the kind of routine that Neville has every day. It also takes its time establishing the relationship Neville has with his dog and to so extent his madness.

Once it has firmly shown you a world abandoned it begins to reveal that this is not entirely the case. This results in some very tense moments early on when we still aren't entirely sure what the infected are or why they are so dangerous. As the film escalates towards its finish, it loses quite a bit of what made it interesting. It quickly ramps up to a more traditional fight the monsters type film. There is one particularly powerful scene in the movie which I won't spoil but suffice to say not only does Smith play it perfectly but the camera work is just right as well.

By the third act the movie is getting increasingly cheap. It includes the introduction of two other humans who have survived although the movie is short on a satisfactory explanation as to how. There is also an inspirational Bob Marley speech that I could have done without as well as a salvation speech that falls kind of flat. Still the first half is well enough done that although in the end it isn't a completely satisfying movie, it definitely holds together despite the end.