Poor quality adaptation of Richard Mathesons superb vampire novel

Rating: 4/10 (3 January 2008)

As a keen fan of Richard Matheson's seminal vampire novella "I AM LEGEND", I was delighted to hear that it was to be filmed for a third occasion after Vincent Price starred in the low budget Italian made "THE LAST MAN ON EARTH" (1964) and Charlton Heston fought hooded, psychotic plague victims in "THE OMEGA MAN". However, after viewing the Will Smith film I came away quite disappointed and "I AM LEGEND" was easily the least faithful adaptation of the novel and something of a hollow movie overall.
( WARNING : POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD ) Where did it go wrong ? Personally, for me I am over post-apocalyptic movies that show repeatedly show iconic points of interest in famous cities (New York, London etc) to illustrate the point that the city is deserted. I didn't pay my admission fee to watch a travelogue of a barren New York filled with weeds, rusting cars and free range deer running up Fifth Avenue. I can work it out for myself that the cities buildings and infrastructure have eroded and corroded over several years since the population was exterminated so I don't need it to be shown ad nausea. Secondly, the plague victim "dark seekers" of "I AM LEGEND" seem to be more closely related to The Incredible Hulk than the vampires of Mathesons novel ! They run like the wind, leap up the side of tall buildings in a single bound, head butt their way through steel shutters, armored glass and flip over fully loaded SUV's.....but they are still susceptible to bullets ???? Boy, that must have been some crazy virus that turned their skulls into armored battering rams, but when they screech they look like enraged cartoon characters with their over-sized dinner plate mouths.
Where was the "Ben Cortman" character from the novel - he was nowhere to be seen, and his relationship with Robert Neville was a central component to the entire book. At least in "THE OMEGA MAN" Charlton Heston had the sinister "Mathias" as his antagonist to hound him in the night time hours with his brethren of fellow nut cases ! As far as the CGI effects of the "dark seekers" was concerned - I felt like I was watching an episode of "BUFFY - THE VAMPIRE SLAYER". They looked fake and that reduced the scare factor considerably. Their were some wonderful opportunities to really go somewhere new with this film, and they all fell well short of achieving some new benchmark in the horror genre.
As far as I'm concerned, I hope that one day some studio has the guts to film the book with a far higher degree of accuracy. This latest version runs second to "THE OMEGA MAN" not just in its lack of faithfulness to the book, but also in that "I AM LEGEND" relies too much on showing a decaying New York and computer generated vampires in place of more invigorating story and character development.