Entertaining in its own right

Rating: 8/10 (8 July 2011)

This variation on Richard Matheson's vampire plague story, retooled as a vehicle for Will Smith, has a lot going for it (and one very serious thing going against it).
It is well-paced. It is entertaining. It has some stunning visualisations of Smith's post-plague life in a New York populated only by him during daylight hours. And it has Smith's performance: very much the macho protagonist, yet allowing us to see the sad, lonely, mourning man - bereaved not just for his family but for his species - who is clinging on to his sanity, barely, by his fingertips. There are places where I think that this may be Smith's best performance ever.
And then there are the CGI zombie/vampires. They, I'm afraid, are awful - I have seen more convincing CGI in a third rate SyFy channel monster movie.
And it's a pity, because convincing plague victims would have made this movie first rate.