A very good movie with excellent acting by Will Smith

Rating: 9/10 (3 December 2009)

About 40 years ago, my parents and younger siblings went camping. I opted out mainly because I was developing into a surly teenager. One night, I stayed up all night for the first time in my life and happened to catch on the late late show, Vincent Price's film "The Last Man on Earth". I was all alone in the house and that movie scared the willies out of me. I've seen it since as an adult and it wasn't quite as frightening. It was based on the book "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson, as was the picture of 2007. I was of the impression that Will Smith did an excellent job of portraying the driven and lonely scientist who believed he and his dog, Samantha, were the only non-infected creatures left in the world. Of course, he is trying without any success to find a cure to the man-made disease that has turned the city into a haven for ravenous creatures that fear of the daylight. Smith for the most of the picture has only his dog and their environs to react to and I believe he does a credible job. The vampire angle of the novel and the first movie is less-prominent; the infected people behave as if they have rabies and cannot stand ultraviolet light, so every night Smith's character has to lock himself inside his fortress of a home and wait for the dawn.
The scene where Smith has to kill his dog because she's infected is the most moving in the whole film. It's ironic that the trap he catches himself in, ending in his friend Samantha being bitten by an infected dog, was probably one of his that he had forgot setting. Of course, there's another possibility: the hemocytes may be more intelligent than Smith's character believes.
Definitely not a "feelgood" movie... But still one I am glad you have in my collection.