Slow, Boring, with all new pointless ending! **MAJOR SPOILERS**

Rating: 4/10 (10 January 2008)

Well, this is the third adaptation of Richard Mathesons novel and we are still left wanting something decent. The Omega Man though was a good movie (IMO) but it has dated a little and "I AM LEGEND" was in need of a modern take on the story.
Here we have Will Smith's Robert Neville, A military scientist who (it's alluded) had some role in a supposed cure for cancer that mutated into a virus that killed 90% of the planet and turned most of whoever was left into ravenous sub human creatures that skulk in the dark, feeding on the immune and being unable to expose themselves to the sun. Now this was the first mistake as far as I'm concerned. The infected in the novel (and the Omega Man) were still Human and had human intelligence. One of them was a friend of Nevilles who used to take great delight in taunting him nightly on his doorstep("Come out Neville, what's the point, you're the last" etc). There were still some human connections between the protagonist and the infected. Here the CGI creatures garner no sympathy whatsoever and there's barely any link between them and humanity at all.
The flashbacks were totally unessecary although they did provide some contrast between the normal bustling streets, alive with human activity and the bleak empty post apocalyptic world Will Smith finds himself inhabiting. I found the film to be dull in a lot of places with very few scenes that contained any real meat or action and a lot of it especially early on was just tedious. The film just starts to heat up and then finishes which brings me on to my biggest problem with the movie. The ending.
There's going to be some ****MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD so IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE ENDING STOP READING NOW****.
In the novel the title "I am Legend" had some meaning. I mean the whole story was about the last Human on Earth. When Neville dies at the end, normal humanity disappears into Legend. When I first picked up the book I thought the title would mean that the hero would be some a$$ kicking bad boy that would reclaim the earth in the name of humanity and actually found the ending quite powerful and sad.
Now the movie here doesn't quite go to those lengths but it does have the "Good guy sacfrifices himself for the good of humanity as he finds he isn't the last after all" bit which, in the face of the original ending just seemed contrived and cliché and quite honestly something the suits likely ordered tacked on.
***SPOILERS END*** Now Will Smith actually does a pretty good turn as Neville seeing as he pretty much carries the entire movie, it's just a shame his material is bland and mostly really boring. Production values are also pretty good across the board with the bleak deserted streets of New York looking really eerie. The FX were also OK if misplaced in this movie...
The director (Francis Lawrence) isn't to fault either as I felt he did a pretty good job and the bits I did find that held my attention were probably down to him. I also loved Constantine. The problem lies in the contrivances taken with a script that really wasn't very good to start with and should have had a couple more rewrites to really nail the substance of the tale being told.
Shame. Maybe we'll get the version we should have gotten by now in about 20 years.