Disappointment at the first zombie

Rating: 5/10 (4 January 2008)

I haven't read the original novel or seen earlier film adaptations. I have only seen one other zombie-type film, which is 28 Days Later (which I liked). So I went into this with an open mind.
**SPOILERS** It started out fairly OK. Will Smith is not the best actor, but I could go along with him playing a brilliant warrior-chemist after only a minor suspension of disbelief. Next: Will clumsily hunting some CGI deer and lions (who let those out of their steel cages and how did they survive the cold?) that looked very unrealistic. Or cornfields that looked very neatly farmed. Or petrol that still seemed to work just fine. Or a bounty of electricity (though I later understood that he cleverly installed generators in his house).
And I'm not even at the zombie-part yet... I was ready to accept all these mistakes if the zombies or whatever they were would be good. But they weren't. They looked like something out of the pre-Lord of the Rings CGI era. Also they were supposed to be completely devoid of human intelligence and behavior, yet they managed to have a leader and trained zombiedogs? And if the virus made rats and dogs -and possibly other animals (yet not lions or deer)- go crazy, where were the packs of zombie-dogs or hordes of zombie-rats roaming the streets at night?? And why didn't Will-the-brilliant-scientist not wait a day or so longer to see if the cure had any effect on the woman? Still, that old lab in the basement of his family home came in very handy (...).
Also, the lady who completely unrealistically managed to survive for years with her young kid and also save Will at the very last minute from a horde of angry zombies. I had this nagging feeling she was trouble. Maybe a zombie-spy (btw I later read in a comment this was exactly what was in the original novel!)? A new variety of zombie that looked more human? She was so normal and calm, and the well-behaved kid did not look traumatized at all. And she didn't know Bob. It creeped me out. But no, she was just a nice lady with a nice kid sent by God (don't even get me started on the Compulsory Christan Theme!) to get the cure to Hobbiton (or wherever the rest of mankind was living). After Will cleverly decided that blowing himself and his precious research-lab with all the results up was a much better plan than escaping with them through that handy chimneyshaft-thingy (which was inside the zombiecage why?).... Really...
Waste of time and a huge missed opportunity for the writers/directors. The zombies would have looked much better if they had just used actors in make-up like in 28 Days Later (just rage and spitting blood, nothing more and they scared me big time!). So next time: maybe spend less money on lousy CGI and more on a decent writer!
o yes, and there's a cute dog. for obvious reasons.