Heartfelt but Plot Failure

Rating: 7/10 (17 December 2007)

I went and saw this movie absolutely excited as it was a remake of Omega Man(1971). I thought will smith would do a great job with the character as he seems to in all of his roles. I started off generally impressed by the displays of the empty city and the scenes of him living for his own. I thought the way he rationalized his singular existence with the use of the mannequins allowed for several of the loneliest scenes in the movie. His relationship with the dog was beautiful and i thought his world was something we could relate to in spite of us never knowing his realm of existence.
My problem came from the second half of the movie. All of the cinematography was excellent and will smith does a good job of acting but I felt his performance was weaker in the second half. He seems to lose his edge and becomes a weaker character- as if not the same person and i found no correlation between his change in character and the direction of the plot. Thus, i was forced to believe his change was a failure by smith, and not an eloquent piece of cinematic work. The movie seemed to be going in a normal direction until his late night scene on the pier and from that point on the plot nose-dives. In not looking up the time of the movie i expected a bit over two hours and was genuinely surprised by the brevity of it. I felt the ending came too soon and was unnecessary. The movie lives up to its name to a degree but the way in which it gets its name derives from a weak attempt at an existential statement. The movie had to follow the book to an extent but here was a case where the director needed to step back, think, and realize that the original may not be the best.
I wish the second half could have lived up to my expectations like the first half did. Still a decent movie in terms of message- not so much in terms of the actually story and plot.