Does Anyone Read Books Anymore?

Rating: 5/10 (17 December 2007)

Love Will Smith in this.
Loved the first two-thirds of the movie.
Hated, hated, hated, hated the last third and the bullsh*t ending and V.O (and the last scene seemed like an out-take for "The Postman")...
Did the writers and director of this movie actually read past the setup in the first 20 pages of the novel? The phrase "I Am Legend" has a very, VERY specific meaning in the book that would elevate this film far above what ends up being a run-of-the-mill zombie flick.This is VERY disappointing, because by and large, during the first two-thirds, most of the changes make sense in light of what we currently know (scientifically) that Richard Metheson couldn't know 50-plus years ago. But the filmmakers evidently didn't have the fortitude or intelligence to deal with the core themes found in the book and turned what is essentially a story of an everyman who eventually becomes an antihero and even a monster because of the plague and extraordinary events in the novel, into a heroic fantasy featuring a Hollywood superstar that COMPLETELY CHANGED THE ENTIRE MEANING OF THE STORY IN THE LAST BIT OF BULLSHIT V.O.
For a while there it actually looked like they were going to tackle some of the core themes from the novel...but then they took the easy route and allowed the narrative to fall prey to a broad range of horror and sci-fi clichés...Will Smith is a fan...I'm surprised he let them puss-out like this.
This would be a fine movie if they just retitled it...but it's NOT a worthy version of "I Am Legend"...
...not by a long shot...