Nice Effort But Mediocre Script

Rating: 5/10 (21 January 2019)

15 January 2008. Warning: Spoilers. An interesting look at an overgrown, forested, dehumanized, unpopulated New York, but the infected people looked artificial, the script was pretty much cliché, predictable, and a lot of the plot points were obviously more for overly dramatic shock value than any real sense of reality. This was more of a glorified horror teen action-thriller ride at an amusement park. It wasn't so much God that put together all the coincidences as the survivor girl says but the screenwriter who just appeared to become lazy and created shock value scenes. The unnecessary flashback technique made the movie more choppy and instead of THE TERMINATOR'S effective use of flashback as a natural part of the storyline, here in I AM LEGEND it's also a lazy way of saving movie costs and explaining the movie through edited scenes. Wil Smith never had an opportunity to really develop a character along a real timeline, the development of his relationship with his dog from a puppy. There isn't any development of his psychological progression over time, except sudden personality changes that seem out of context and don't appear to really make sense. There are the infected strange behavior that almost imply that they have retain some intellectual or emotional faculties but then it's ignored by the end of the movie. There is one scene where Wil Smith is in a bathtub for the night and then seen in bed in the morning as if nothing happened. There is a lot of layman shooting at deer for no real apparent reason, even for sport or food, it's not ever clear. There was too much manipulation, Wil Smith's wife at first being shown positive than negative for the virus, then the implication that their escape helicopter is destroyed by an out of control helicopter. There were just too many possibilities to make this a really good remake. Wil Smith isn't at fault, it was the material. While the story is understandable, the action and thrills decent, all together there just isn't any qualitative superlatives here that really move this movie into the very good category. The producers probably hoped that the supposedly fascinating look of New York would carry the movie, but unfortunately, it also became just a wild dream that crashed and burned. Five out of Ten Stars.