Enjoyable yet not scary

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 2007)

I didn't quite know what to think of "I Am Legend after it ended. I liked it, but at the same time there was just something about it that made me dislike it. In the tradition of "Cast Away", Will Smith is alone, and the only thing he can talk to is his dog and some store mannequins. His character Robert Neville is part of the 1% of survivors of a virus that turns everyone into zombie/vampires. He is totally alone in Manhattan, and watching him speed through deserted Times Square is extremely eerie. During the day he hunts and tries to find a cure for the virus, and at night he hides from the "dark seekers".
There is one of my problems, the trailer promised a freaky movie, and it is until we see the creatures, then we find out they look almost laughable. Though a scene when Neville is in a pitch black warehouse, before he first sees them, will scare the daylights out of you. Even though the dark seekers are not scary, the director still manages to make you jump at least 8 times. The most I've ever jumped in a movie. The creatures look like poorly done CGI; bald humans with rotting teeth and red eyes. And that's not very scary to me. Also, towards the middle, some scenes start to drag since you have realized that it won't be scary.
That aside, Will Smith is brilliant playing a quiet, dark, brooding character instead of his usual one liner cracking macho men. He literally carries the movie on his own and actually makes otherwise tedious scenes, like giving his dog a bath, interesting, or talking to his mannequin friend, Fred, believable. Director Francis Lawrence did a good job for the most part creating an eerie and dark movie, yet he failed horribly in making a believable, scary vampire hybrid, and with tons of plot holes in an otherwise interesting concept. Also, the ending is sorely lacking, if they would've come up with a better ending the movie would seem even better, but sadly they did not.
This is a very enjoyable movie for the hour and forty minutes that it plays out, but the second it's done it becomes mostly forgettable. "I Am Legend" is one of those movies you see once, like it, but then never see it again. Already this film has made 76 million in the first three days, so see it mostly because it'll be the "thing" right now, and also see it because of the amazing Will Smith.