Excellent adaptation proving there is still heart and soul(s?) in the big movie business.

Rating: 9/10 (15 December 2007)

After skimming the book, and having watched the previous two attempts at I Am Legend, I went in hoping for the best, but expecting mediocrity, (or something like the two recent Resident Evil films)... But I was quite surprised and entertained by what I experienced. Though it's true that most of the CG in this film is not very good, it's apparent to me that CG isn't the film's selling point, or what it leans on for merit. It's a well acted, well paced, well directed, and well adapted piece. Honestly, the 'monster' aspect never needed to be front-and-center visually for it to be effective. I thought it was implemented very well (largely in the dark and ultra fast moving scenes where the imagination can assist).
I was hoping for a departure from "The Omega Man", which I thought was an incredibly silly film of what I consider to be the "A-Team variety". But, for the first 30 minutes or so, there were just so many analogs to Charlton Heston's performance that it was getting predictable (though the Will Smith version is hardly as pompous as Heston's). Very quickly, though, I forgot all about that concern and the movie really came into it's own. Smith's character, the environment, and the adversary were all quite different and very well conceived.
I was also expecting vampires (a genre that I'm no big fan of), and was pleasantly surprised at what I found in this film's antagonist to be (which is 28 times more endearing to me than vampires).
The third and probably most detracting thing I was expecting from this film was for it to suffer from the standard droll devices of a big-budget blockbuster: the requisite love story, Rambo shoot-em-up action, and a dialog-over-story plot basis. Oh, and not to mention headlining a traditionally "feel-good" star actor that could probably run for president one day. Fortunately, none of these normally ever-present problems intruded to ruin this film. And though it was indeed an uncharacteristically dark role for Smith in several ways, he pulled it off brilliantly.
Maybe it could have been a little longer, answering more questions and allowing more of the psychodrama to filter in, but it's possible that would have spoiled the excellent balance of jump-in-your seat action vs. the plot/tension building interstital scenes. The theater I saw this in was packed with plenty viewers from the younger crowd (it's hard to believe this film is only PG-13 in the US). However, the entire theater was completely silent and caught in the grip of the films action, story line, and excellent pacing.
I noticed a lot of people taking advantage of what could be considered the 'comic relief' of this film. However, I found some of the 'humorous' parts less than laughable, and more disturbing than anything. When you see this, really try to understand this man's environment and then you will probably better understand his psyche.
I will look forward to more from this relatively unknown writer/director team.