More a damp squib than a Legend

Rating: 2/10 (25 January 2008)

WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS!!
First of all, let me begin by stating that this is one of those cases where if you've read the book, then you'll probably hate the film. This is perhaps unfair due to the conflicting nature of books and films. Whereas the former have the time to go deeply into the psychology and richness of the characters, films (as a rule) have to cram this into as little visual space as they can, especially when the storyline follows a general format of the "action" genre. There are notable exceptions ("Alien" for a start) but this film isn't one of them.
To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this film and in that respect, I wasn't disappointed. However I left the cinema with a lingering feeling that I'd seen it all before. So let's take a moment to go over some areas that appeared in "I Am Legend": 1) Major city being deserted and populated by wild animals - see "12 Monkeys" 2) The protagonists are virus-wracked inhuman killers referred to as "infected" - swap "vampires" for "zombies" and you've got "28 Days Later" 3) Will Smith saves the world - see Independence Day and that's just for starters!
A few seconds of Will Smith working out and showing off his pumped-up physique were probably added to highlight the fact that his character needs to maintain peak fitness to deal with his situation but actually come across as "Will Smith showing off". Gratuitous topless shot, anyone? The only convincing relationship is that between him and his dog, one of the major elements of the book that successfully crosses over to celluloid. Will Smith's one defining moment is when he's called upon to stretch his acting skills and portray genuine angst when putting the dog out of its newly-infected rabid existence.
For me, the whole point of the original story was the question of how an ordinary guy would cope with being the only person alive in a major metropolis, surrounded by nightwalking bloodsuckers after his life. The intricacies and subtleties of trying to survive were made all the more poignant by knowing that "it could have been you!". Changing that focus to that of Will Smith's character, as Lt. Col. Robert Neville M.D. lost all of that. Let's face it, we're supposed to believe that he was the only person left of the 10% of the population in New York city that were immune to infection and hadn't already been converted through being munched by the bad guys. The fact that he was the only person with all of the inside knowledge of the infection and just happened to have all of the technical equipment (cue Apple's product placement) to research the problem and also just happened to be clever enough to do it was at best implausible and at the worst, downright insulting to the intelligence of the viewer.
The ridiculously-contrived flashback backstory concerning "the family Neville" seems to have been chucked into the mix to deliberately tug at the heartstrings and to add to the emotional angst but the explosive (pun intended) conclusion could be seen coming a mile off! The replacement roles of the woman and boy are equally contrived and in all honesty, we don't care enough about them to invest much emotion in the film's seen-it-all-before denouement. Having spent the entire film trying, and failing, to persuade us to give a toss about our "hero", we're now supposed to switch over to the newcomers like sheep following the farmer to slaughter.
A focal point of the book's story involved the main character's house and the security that it brought to his sanity as well as his physical well-being. The feeling of having to be caged within a defined set of walls for half of his existence added to the tension and emotional turmoil of the story and when this is finally breached, the guy's tough exterior and effort to survive is threatened with being wiped out alongside the brick and mortar. When Will Smith's house gets attacked, it's just another building and this is probably due to the fact that we're supposed to believe in the superior strength of character of Mr Smith as a stand-alone warrior of the plagued age. His failure to rely on anything other than himself or his dog actually serves to alienate him from the audience.
So now we come to the effects. The action scenes are well shot and the sweeping vistas of an empty New York are well constructed, as are the background images of ruined bridges, etc. The one point where it all falls down, however, is in the rendering of the "infected". This lack of attention to realism may have been acceptable a decade ago but in this film they just come across as men in rubber suits. And badly executed rubber suits at that. Perhaps the filmmakers should have taken a leaf out the book entitled "Less Is Definitely More".
To be honest, this film lost me in the opening moments when Will Smith went hunting for wild stag. With access to the entire pickled and canned food supply in New York, was there any real need to go shooting animals? Apart from further highlighting Will Smith's warrior stance, that is. The only time my excitement threatened to rise was at the beginning when I caught a glimpse of a mocked-up "Batman vs. Superman" poster on the side of a building.
In summary, if you haven't read the book then you might like this film. If you haven't seen "12 Monkeys", "28 Days Later", "The Stand" or "Escape from New York" then you might like this film. If you want to see Will Smith save the world yet again, in a vacuous action flick that doesn't bother to invest too much in emotional realism, then you might like this film. Otherwise, you'll probably hate it.