The first half was excellent. The second half is just a dull violent, and don't forget stupid, Hollywood style climax

Rating: 5/10 (16 December 2007)

I Am Legend is about a massive infection that got loose in New York City. 3 years later we meet Robert Neville (Will Smith), a scientist living with his dog Sam all alone in NYC. New York is completely barren of people which makes Robert one of the only, or maybe THE only, survivor. During the day he waits by a pier with the hope that someone will find him. He also hunts deer that roam the city for food. But at night he must barricade his apartment shut in order to keep the Zombie-like creatures out. The zombies are the people who were infected by the virus, millions of them that can only come out at night. While the zombies get much more intelligent, Robert must now try and find a vaccine to cure them.
I Am Legend starts off very well with its apocalyptic vision of NYC completely barren of people. The companionship between Robert and his dog Sam is also done excellently. If a dog could win an Oscar believe me, the dog playing Sam would without a doubt win.
As we begin to realize Robert may slowly be going insane, it is a little awkward at first since it has to do with mannequins. But this is nothing compared to the second half of the film, which I'll get into next. The effects are very well done when it comes to the view of the eery emptiness of NYC, which is probably the creepiest thing about the whole movie.
Now for the big problem which is the second half of I Am Legend. Throughout the first half it mostly hinted at what these zombies were really like, except for one dark scene which scared me pretty good. However the second half shows hordes upon hordes of these man-eating zombies, which look like computer-generated CGI monsters out of a somewhat higher budgeted Sci-Fi channel flick. There is also a big plot hole because the movie never explains how these zombies survive. What do they eat? Do they live on water like humans? And also how come they have gotten so muscular, loud, and better yet how come their lower jaws can stretch so far down? It was also a major problem that these zombies seemed to get more intelligent at hunting prey, and all of a sudden they become stupid and caveman-like once again. Everything goes completely downhill because it's as if the first half was not violent or Hollywood style enough. So they had to pack all that in to make a hollowingly dull, and ridiculously stupid and fake looking actionized ending.
I Am Legend starts off very well until it's fatally idiotic second half. Will Smith's acting was very good and you could truly see his loss and sadness. But all that and more is lost completely in the CGI pumped up climax. The filmmakers obviously couldn't come up with a good satisfying conclusion, so it ended up with a bad ending. The ending is horrible in my opinion because it is unsatisfying and literally does not solve anything. Once you see it think about the ending, you'll realize how badly it works out. I give I Am Legend a 2 out of 4, and am quite disappointed about it.