Ultimately Disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2008)

The original novel is interesting, but for me it served primarily as the inspiration of 1971's "The Omega Man". This is an excellent film - one of my all time favourites - but I have always been convinced that a longer and far superior version was sacrificed to make it short enough to be shown in "double-feature" presentations.
I looked forward eagerly to "I Am Legend", in the hope that the earlier film's shortcomings would be overcome, and the cinematic potential of the story realised.
I do like "I Am Legend". Will Smith is very good at this sort of role, and he didn't disappoint. Unfortunately it seems that once again a much longer and much better movie has ended up on the cutting room floor, with the theatrical presentation only a shadow of what it might have been.
Another problem I had is with the CGI zombies. In "Beowulf", the CGI animation works because everything is in the same format - after a few minutes the brain accepts what is on the screen as a uniform reality and settles down to enjoy the action. In films which mix CGI with live action, the brain is constantly reminded of the unreality where the two meet. This reduced the poor plague victims in "I Am Legend" to little more than well-rendered cartoons, and they were at their most interesting and frightening only when seen in glimpses.
It's well worth the admission, but I left disappointed that once again this story has not been brought properly to the screen. Perhaps the director will take the opportunity of a DVD issue to give us the film this should have been.