It had so much potential

Rating: 3/10 (14 January 2008)

I first heard about this film when Will Smith was on TV doing an interview about it. He talked briefly about the plot and the book it was based upon... and I was so excited to see this film as it sounded amazing.
Upon now seeing the film, I am quite disappointed with how the how thing was handled. I have read the book, and I believe the film would have been a whole lot better it it stuck a bit more closely to what happens in the book. Little changes for example- he is a scientist from the beginning, and he has a dog from the beginning doesn't matter. What I am more concerned about is the 'Vampires'. I would have much preferred they had used real 'human' actors in makeup, rather than graphics (which is what it looks like very obviously) and maybe kept the lion scene out of the movie, because they looked like stuffed toys. The beginning of the movie was great, up until the dog ran into the dark area, and Neville came across the monsters all huddled together. The minute I saw their fakeness I was let down considerably.
One movie that I really like which I believe may be a bit similar is 28 Days Later. Although the infected aren't vampires, they aren't zombies.. they are infected with a disease. I enjoyed the fact that the majority of the scenes in 28 days later where (what seems like) the last man on earth is wandering real areas of London, and no one is around. This scenery was not computer generated, from what I have read, Times Square in I am Legend was 100% computer generated. The fact that the areas in London which were filmed, even though some were short clips of emptiness when the roads were closed off for a couple of minutes, it was real. It makes me appreciate the films more.
28 Days later also uses real people for the 'infected'- unlike I am Legend, which are computer generated. They did originally use actors, but decided to create computer generated ones instead. One of the excuses was that they didn't act well in bare feet at night, and they couldn't hyperventilate for long periods of time... To be honest, the infected weren't in long enough shots for me to notice that they were hyperventilating... and I'm sure they could have worn flesh coloured shoes... hey, they digitally made times square, I'm sure they can digitally take away shoes.
What it seems to me, the only not digital thing in the film is Will Smith.
To be honest, I think it could have been made so much more better, even though they film is getting good ratings, I am personally not happy with it at all.