What could have been...

Rating: 6/10 (9 March 2008)

I went into this film thinking it would be awful. Plug Will Smith in Action Movie Will Smith mode into just about anything, and I'm bound to dislike it. What I found, for the first half of this film, instead, was a beautifully photographed and very well acted piece. Smith, a solid actor when he chooses material that suits his gifts, carries the weight of being the film's only character for about an hour in an effortless, engaging manner. It's one of his best performances. The film, which slowly reveals its (and its character's) history in flashbacks, is engaging for this hour. Then...the plot thickens.
I won't give away the ending except to say that the film deviates DEEPLY from the novel's second act. In doing so, it not only loses me by going for a safe, semi-happy ending, but it perverts the author's very meaning of the title of the novel.
Matheson (is he still alive?) should be pretty displeased. I am.