this adaptation of the Matheson story fails to compare

Rating: 5/10 (22 February 2011)

As others have said, the CGI is very bad, the "infected" don't act like vampires, as they are in the novel, they act more like cartoon monkeys and climb like Spiderman. They all look exactly the same, and they know how to keep dogs on a leash, which is surprising. In the classic survival-horror story, Neville is a regular guy-next-door, who's trying to survive as best he can, and uses his generator to operate necessities...the movie however has Neville as a scientist who watches pre-recorded news broadcasts, and uses his generators to operate, not only his entertainment electronics, but a vast array of scientific equipment down in his basement--which is very unbelievable, and made the movie even more stupid in my opinion. Another lame idea of the movie is that he believes everyone else in the world is dead and yet is trying to come up with a vaccine...for what purpose? How would he administer this vaccine, if successful, to the millions--if not billions--of infected? The ending is extremely weak and again, very poor CGI. The only good CGI in the movie are the scenes involving an abandoned and overgrown New York City.
This movie falls extremely short of the literature it was taken from. The screen adaptation is poor and the CGI is horrible. They should watch Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead, and you can see what really good makeup effects can do and sometimes the less CGI you use--the better it can be. If done correctly, a film-adaptation of the Richard Matheson story would be a great movie, but this movie isn't worth owning, and far-less worthy of the Matheson title. Read the original book and use your imagination.