Too many diversions from the novel

Rating: 5/10 (1 February 2013)

I'm a huge fan of Richard Matheson, whose classic sci-fi novels of the 1950s (such as this and THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN) helped make the decade fun. I AM LEGEND has been filmed a couple of times before, as LAST MAN ON EARTH with Vincent Price and THE OMEGA MAN with Charlton Heston. Both were fun productions that threw their own slants on the source material, but neither of them could be called a classic. Much the same can be said of this production.
On the surface, I AM LEGEND is a perfectly serviceable movie. I'm no fan of Will Smith as a serious actor, but even I'll admit that he does pretty well here as a tormented, lonely hero. He builds a fine rapport with his canine companion for much of the production. The big budget nature of the production means that this looks visually impressive, with lots of ruined cityscape shots and eerie foreboding built up along the way.
What goes wrong, then? Well, two things. Firstly, the film is wrong-footed by some dodgy CGI work, firstly in the form of the wild animals that have taken over New York, and secondly in the nature of the vampire menace. They're entirely animated by computer graphics, Gollum-style, but they don't look particularly convincing, and the more we see of them, the worse they look. Naturally, the most frightening scenes are those early on in which the foes remain unseen, Smith and his pet crouched in a bath while their cries echo eerily through the night.
The second problem is that the film loses its way as it progresses, wasting interesting thematic elements and becoming a straightforward action flick. And the last third is unforgivable, throwing in a twist I found hard to swallow and which makes a mockery of the book. It's a shame, because in the right hands this could have been the stuff of, well, legend.