Dear Hollywood et al

Rating: 4/10 (26 December 2007)

please take two scripts for the same movie, read them, then decide in whatever manner you use to choose scripts on a winner. Throw that one out and go with the one you hate because the scripts you are choosing are crap.
Anyone who has read I Am Legend will be disappointed in the movie. However the disappointment is bearable in this case as the movie, as a whole, is watchable. It isn't great. Nothing about it is great save the realistic vision of an empty NYC. Will Smith once again shows that he is the new Tom Cruise, talented enough to make people show up but not talented enough to blow you away. Part of this can be blamed on the director, part on the script but Smith has never been believable in anything that wasn't a comedy. Basically if you want to see the agony of a lone survivor, rent Cast Away one more time.
Anyone else tired of doomsday flix that promise so much but deliver so little? There were a few tense moments a few chills but other than that the movie was Hollywood 101. Big name star. Big budget wasted on CGI. CGI dominates and eventually causes viewer to lose interest in the story. Dog and Smith or Hanks and ball? Watchable movie that won't make you think of Oscar's but also won't make you cringe at the money you just spent.
But fans of the book will be disappointed that the movie isn't faithful to the source material. Fans of movie making will be the biggest losers as once again a studio took great source material and made it something far less than what it could have been. How does an inexperienced director coming off the disappointing Constantine get handed another big budget movie? How do the writers off such trash as Constantine, Batman Returns and Poseidon get chosen to write this script? How does the pedestrian Smith get handed a part that requires such depth? Memo to Akiva Goldsman stop taking classic sci-fi material and mangling it.