A Moving and Vivid Pyscological Thriller

Rating: 9/10 (15 December 2007)

I left the theatre last night feeling moved and in awe of the story told of a man so driven by his need for absolution that he isolated himself in a city filled with monsters.
It isn't enough for most people to live, they have to have a reason for living. Robert Neville's cause was his promise to his dead little girl that he would "fix this." Over and over again, he said that, that he would fix this.
After three years alone, Neville's patterns are pretty well set. He and his dog hunt the city in the day. The night and the dark places belong to the mutants. And unlike the previous adaptations of the Richard Matheson novel, Neville does not seek out the mutants by day to kill them...he fears them to his very core, and only goes into their lair to save his dog, gone to chase a stag.
I found the trap set by the mutants to be too intelligent...first the mutants would have to perceive the purpose of the mannequins in the video store, choose one that would move Neville to investigate (the peripheral dummies would likely not have grabbed his attention as much), and then set up the trap for the last food in the city. It seemed too intelligent a trap for the creatures we saw in the film, who were nothing more than bundles of raw anger, rage and desire. This trap was clearly a necessary plot device needed to move the story forward, and I have to give it a bye for that.
The interaction of Neville and the two survivors that find him is lovely and moving, as when the hero mouths the words from "Shrek" as the movie is playing on the DVD player. This one lonely, lonely man, nearly driven crazy by his isolation. He doesn't even know how to relate to people at first.
As a person who has been in self-imposed isolation for nearly three years, I can totally relate to Will Smith's character, and my hat is off to him for a virtuoso performance!
Nine of of ten for the sheer emotion that this film evoked in me.