Surprisingly good.

Rating: 6/10 (4 January 2008)

I was happy to hear that there would be a new film adaptation of this book until I heard Will Smith was staring and then I assumed it would be rubbish. Thankfully that wasn't the case.
Will Smith is excellent in the lead, which is good since he is the only real character in the film, he manages to deliver an great performance as a desperate man who is refusing to give in and unlike in other films he's been in he never compromises the performance by showing his own personality.
The film is dark and atmospheric at times with a little running and screaming. The creatures are probably the worst part of the film, they are obvious CGI and look fake and silly, their behaviour isn't consistent either, sometimes they display high levels of intelligence but not when the are actually on screen and are shown as dumb zombie style creatures for simplicity.
The film does have two of my least favourite types of direction; the first is jerky camera work, we can see that he is running making the screen jump up and down doesn't heighten tension it is just annoying; the second is things jumping in to shot suddenly to startle you, yes people jump when it happens but it's no smarter than jumping out from behind a door and shouting boo!
The ending is OK, it's a little convenient and not especially smart but this is an action film after all.
This does lack the intelligence and sophistication of the book, the creatures and the ending are much smarter in the book, but it is a reasonably faithful adaptation.
It's a good action film which works better in the quiet scenes than in the action ones but it hangs together well enough and Smith's performance is good enough to hold your interest.
Entertaining but not really special.