Lost it's way

Rating: 7/10 (11 January 2008)

For a start i am aware that this will be the third incarnation of Richard Matheson's book I Am Legend but the only one with the same title.
The first being "The Last Man On Earth" with Vincent Price and the second being "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston.
I did have high expectations this time around and for the first hour i wasn't disappointed. Will Smith is excellent as Robert Neville and you genuinely feel how alone he is as he talks daily to mannequins he has placed across a barren new york, as well as his trusty side kick Sam (his dog) The director did a good job with certain scenes by making the viewer feel almost as isolated as Neville.
Where it falls down is basically everything Akiva Goldsman wrote into the script. Fortunately i was able to read the original draft done by Mark Protosevich and it was superb. It had all the elements of Mathesons book, namely that Neville hunted the creatures during the day. They could talk and showed signs of intelligence and saw Neville as the cause of the demise of humanity and therefor their sworn enemy. He became "legend" However Goldsman has a lot of sway in Hollywood and stamped his mark on the script by completely changing the ending, and the middle, and the creatures etc etc.
The ending of this film felt rushed. It is over in 20 minutes and you really do feel robbed because the first 2 acts build you up for something good.
The creature design is awful. The CGI doesn't work in this. It is meant to be scary and it isn't. The darkness is meant to bring with it a heightened sense of dread. It doesn't.
I have watched this twice and still feel the same way. The ending lets it down immensely.
It's not the worse movie i saw in 2007 and it's definitely not the worse re-make i've seen but i was hugely disappointed by this film.
If you are a fan of Mathesons book then you probably won't like this film at all. If you are a fan of any of the earlier films then again you prob wont like it.
If however you like your isolated, alone, apocalypse, end of the world films then it is worth a watch. Just bare in mind about the ending.
Out of 10 i give it 7