Somewhat disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (13 January 2008)

I just watched "I am Legend" and have to admit I had expected more. During the first half the movie succeeds in developing a sense of isolation and manages to get across how 3 years of loneliness can affect a man. Will Smith does a good job in portraying that, and actually the dog manages to become a character as well. The shots of an abandoned metropolis, New York in this case, are just as impressive as the shots of an empty London in "28 days later" were. The main difference for me is that the main character has lived in this world for a few years now, and has managed to stay relatively sane by playing small "games". That makes him quite likable. Still, he is on the border of insanity, which makes him interesting. For me, that's a really good mix. Sadly, after the first half, somehow it seems that the CGI department took over. Why they used CGI for the infected is just beyond me, lots of other movies did far better jobs at portraying similar "monsters" with just some makeup and perhaps prosthetics where needed. The infected in this movie just stand out far too much to be taken really seriously. Lots of badly done CGI monsters with no variation to them whatsoever to make them at least look like they could have been human. From there it goes straight downhill and finally comes to a conclusion with a typical Hollywood happy ending, which is the most disappointing thing of all.