Exceeded my expectations; well-made and well-acted entertainment with some flaws

Rating: 7/10 (3 January 2008)

Shots of the film's main character (and, for the most part, the only character), Dr. Robert Neville, going through his daily routine in an abandoned Manhattan in a sequence looking like the opening scenes in 28 Days Later tenfold featured in the trailer and seemed quite nice, but later shots of Neville's encounters with the "Dark Seekers", the film's half-vampire half-zombie creatures made me think that most of the movie would depict his action-filled fight against them. I was most pleasantly surprised to find that most of the film is devoted to depicting precisely the former: a day-in-the-life portrayal of Neville's routine. What is surprising in these sequences is the immense amount of detail director Francis Lawrence and his team go into in order to make the experience as believable and real as possible. The portrayal of the mundane routines Neville goes through every day being pretty much the last man on earth, such as keeping a daily video diary, or his daily radio broadcast announcing his existence to any other survivors in the world.
So how does Lawrence keep the audience interested enough to invest in a film that for the most part depicts the daily routine of the last man on earth? With three simple steps. The first being total immersion of the audience in the reality of the world. We are captured by the film's opening shots of an abandoned Manhattan, which put the opening sequence of Vanilly Sky to shame. Lawrence has us totally convinced to the authenticity of this situation, which makes us able to invest into even the smallest commotions. Second, he fills Neville's life with such small, local dramas that, due to the urgency of his existence and the harsh reality of the world, create a strong emotional impact with us: Neville's developing relationship with his dog, for example, or his occasional forays into the realm of the Dark Seekers, in particular one specific sequence which Lawrence directs with a surprisingly effective sense of dread and true, sincere tension and terror. One can easily compare these dramatic tools to those featured in Robert Zemeckis' Cast Away, another film that features one character carrying almost the entire film on his shoulders alone. In that film, we are quickly accustomed to Chuck's sudden and urgent change in reality, and the smallest occurrences in the mundane, routine-based life he has accustomed for himself become big and dramatically significant events, things such as his discovering fire, a piece of scrap metal washing on shore, and his developing relationship with a volleyball, which to the film's credit is a little more difficult to serve as an emotional investment than a dog is, although I Am Legend handles the field nicely as well. Finally, Lawrence injects these sequences with occasional flashbacks to a time immediately before the outbreak of the disaster alluding to the events pertaining to Neville's own personal family, his wife and daughter, and the fate in store for them. These sequences unfold as their own dramatic arc, which keeps us invested, but is not enough to finish off the story.
The film also has one major element working to its advantage that keeps it going, and that is the immensely talented Will Smith who, similar to Tom Hanks in Cast Away, carries almost the whole movie entirely on his own. Smith delivers a very fine performance with far more depth and intensity than one would expect from the genre, and manages not only to carry the film on his shoulders but also manages to keep the audience emotionally invested in his ventures. Smith's portrayal of Neville is not one of the brave, devoted soul persistent in saving the world, although at first it may seem so. No, it is the portrayal of a broken and deeply scarred individual who has conversations with mannequins in order to fill his life with at least a symbolic dose of human relation; an individual who has lost all possible hope for salvation; an individual who determinedly continues his life's work from before the apocalyptic event not in order to save humanity but in order to give himself a reason to keep on living. Three major events that occur around the end of the second act and the beginning of the third act carry an immense emotional weight on Smith's character, who is used to routine and enters a state of manic shock triggered any external events, and Smith plays these scenes to utmost tragic perfection.
Lawrence, having no other choice, introduces a very major turn of events occurring in the final third of the film that is not only necessary for the dramatic development and closure of the film but is also handled surprisingly well. Naturally I will avoid going into details, but I will say that although I had anticipated the eventual inclusion of such an event, I was most pleasantly surprised at the way Lawrence chose to handle it. That said, the film backs itself into a corner in the final ten minutes or so, and rushes into a rather disappointing ending which, naturally, I will not divulge here and which brings inevitable closure to the dramatic arc, though I would have much preferred an ending more on par with the film's previous levels of poignancy. Also, while the CGI-induced creation of a post-apocalyptic New York City devoid of any other human life is a spectacle to behold, I must admit that the CGI-created zombie creatures are somewhat of a disappointment, and don't always sell perfect believability to the audience. Still, I admit that the film exceeded my expectations, was a lot smarter and better handled than I thought it would be, and of course serves as a solid piece of entertainment, well acted and well made.