Great adaptation spooled by CGI effects

Rating: 8/10 (31 December 2007)

This review might be considered as bias as I am into these kind of films, anything relating to zombies and to a post apocalyptic setting I tend to watch. What makes this film so special to me is the fact that its based on a book which had inspired other directors to create films of similar themes (zombies, last man on earth, desolate environment etc.) and I thought that its time to see the origin of these films from I Am Legend. Even though its an adaptation, it is a good adaptation. In fact all three film adaptations that I've seen are great (The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man and I Am legend) and each puts in their own version of how the story is conveyed. I guess the first film stays true to the book in which the main character Robert Neville actually goes on a vampire hunting spree. But later adaptations are good variation to the story and I Am Legend is indeed in one of those category. Focuses mainly on Neville's psychological characteristics and rather than concentrating on him killing the infected its main focus is on him trying to find a cure, this film ask the question of what it would be like to be the last man on earth. And how can one cope with being that last human in an empty world. I never thought of the movie to be full of action packed sequences, the film does what it says on the tin and again stays faithful to the original story. Using the mannequins to talk to and having a dog as a companion keeps his insanity at bay. The ending again is slightly different and instead of being killed by the infected Neville sacrifices himself in order to save the others and instead of his legend being established due to 'vampire-killing', his legend is established due to the cure he has founded. Not exactly a bad variation to the ending but imo it suffers from the Hollywood system of a happy ending. Not particularly what I had expected considering that the previous outing ended far better with him being staked but it was better than nothing I supposed. My only gripe with the film is the CGI. Horrendous looking CGI with the mutants. Supposedly the director replaced real actors with CGI as it was not convincing enough. Well these CGI mutants weren't any better nor convincing enough as well. However I've got to say the environments were amazing to look at and it really created that desolate looking setting. Overall it started off great, was fairly decent in the middle but kinda spooled in the end.