This film isn't legendary

Rating: 6/10 (16 December 2007)

It isn't a terrible film,it just could have been so much better.It went through the motions instead of actually doing the real work of being a good spellbinding movie.This is at least the 4th movie made from the awesome book "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson.
In this movie Will Smith is a lone survivor of a virus that wipes out mankind.He is an Army scientist or was before mankind all died.He ,along with his dog,lives in New York City.By day he has the run of the city by night he must hide from the night creatures that seek food.
The movie is killed by the slow pacing in the first 3/4 of the film.It just takes forever to get going and about the time it does Will Smith's character has a flashback or a dream about his family.We watch Will eat breakfast and run on his treadmill and go to the rental store to browse the DVDs.Then he'll have another flashback and then back to present day picking corn or some other mundane thing.With the PG-13 rating the scares and gore are pretty tame.
I'd like the film to have been grittier and less glossy if you know what I mean.It doesn't have the look of the end of civilization really.I mean Will still has electricity and water,we are never told how,and he somehow has a state of the art lab in his apartment in which he does research to try and figure out what happened.And I found it completely silly that one of the scientists who was working to contain the spread of the virus would be the sole survivor.I mean what are the odds on that?And since the virus killed over 5 billion people there is a total lack of bodies anywhere around.Just a lot of things like that were glossed over and not explained.Spend more time on the gritty details and stop trying to impress me with big expensive computer hocus-pocus.
The special effects are run of the mill explosions and stuff like that.The night creatures were hugely disappointing...the same pale skinned blue veined weirdos we've seen in a least a dozen recent films like "The Messengers" and "Silent Hill".I mean come on at least give me an original monster.
Will Smith is a good enough actor but a weak script and turtle like pacing of this film dooms it to being just another run of the mill horror/sci-fi movie.I was hoping this film would be great.The title of the Matheson book has always been one of the coolest titles ever,"I AM LEGEND",I mean that is just great.
This movie is worth the admission price but not one to add to your home collection.Instead take your money and get a copy of "The Omega Man" with Charleton Heston or better yet watch Vincent Price in "The Last Man on Earth" or better still find a copy of the book by Matheson.He has written some very cool stuff.Another of his books "The
Shrinking Man" is one of the best books I've ever read.
Even if this movie isn't perfect it at least has a cool title.