A good evocation of a catastrophe and derelict major city

Rating: 7/10 (3 July 2008)

Having posted up some reviews of "old school" zombie movies here (by George A. Romero), I thought I'd post up one for this Hollywood blockbuster variation (Romero was not mainstream and worked on shoe-string budgets).
Will Smith, playing military scientist Robert Neville, finds himself in a world which has imploded after a medical virus which seemed to cure cancer goes feral, creating 'zombie' humans and seems to leave him as the sole, unaffected survivor-at least in New York, but perhaps the world too.
Smith manages to hold our attention despite being the sole human character for much of the movie (there are flashbacks where his character is seen with his wife etc). One of the strengths of the movie is the relationship Smith shares with his pet dog-sort of like the relationship Max has with his mutt in Mad Max 2 (I posted up a review of that here earlier today).
Perhaps the best reason to see this movie is for it's depiction of a derelict New York. These are the most effective evocations of a world gone wrong.
One gripe about this movie is the representation of the 'zombies' in this movie. In the latter scenes, these affected humans cease to be plausible representations of victims of a mutant virus (um, I don't want to get into a debate about 'realistic' depictions of zombies though!).
In fact, one of the most effective scenes is when we see these things up close for the first time. It's really unnerving and scary. That was a bit of an opportunity lost, I thought, in not going down that road. In trying to be novel about the zombies, it goes in a less satisfying direction than it could have. Even with a budget, Romero didn't overdo the zombies in his movie.
Given the subject nature of this movie and the fact that it is an American movie, it's not really surprising that you get religious references in this movie-from posters, to theological discussions. Not a huge downer, but it does get tiresome having many American movies behaving like God botherers.
Watch this movie for its evocation of a derelict New York. It looks REALLY cool.