Some weaknesses, but well worth seeing

Rating: 8/10 (15 January 2008)

I have not read the Richard Matheson novel on which this is based, so cannot comment on any deviations between the two.
From the point of view of enjoying the film, however, this doesn't matter much. Will Smith turns in an excellent and convincing performance as Robert Neville, a military doctor living in fortified solitude on Manhattan. Neville believes himself to be the last real human left alive after a devastating plague arising from a genetically modified version of the measles virus developed, as we see in a short prologue, by a cancer specialist as a cure for that affliction.
Also on the island are various animals and some other humans who have mutated rather than died from the virus. Their sole aim is to kill anyone not like them, but they cannot stand UV light, so cannot come out during the day.
The sequences set in a deserted New York owe more than a little to the equivalent scenes set in London that were part of what made Danny Boyle's chilling 2002 effort "28 Days Later" so effective. Unlike that film, however, we see flashbacks (including the prologue, which shows an interview with the cancer specialist, played with eerie smugness by Emma Thompson) that tell us how things got this way.
Apart from a rather pat ending, the film is remarkable for its hopelessness. Neville is reduced to conversing with shop dummies and viewing recordings of old news shows. It is when he starts expecting them to answer that we realize the effect all of this is having on his mind.
Camera work and music are satisfactory rather than inspired and the CGI effects for the mutants are less than convincing. The atmosphere is great though and sterling work from Smith makes this a movie well worth the price of admission.
Recommended. Rating: 8/10.