Film review: I Am Legend

I Am Legend @ IMDB

To go off on a tangent almost immediately, the closest film to compare this to is Cast Away: big giant movie star appears in a film where it's just them on screen the majority of the time. Will Smith is the new Tom Hanks? Possibly.

Back to the film, what we have here is basically Fresh Prince of The Living Dead or, as some have somewhat unfairly put it, 28 Days Lamer.

That is the obvious comparison: Wiky-wiky-wild-wild-Will is Robert Neville, the last man alive in New York and possibly the world. He is searching for the cure for a plague that has wiped out 90% of mankind, a few were immune but the rest? I'm definitely sensing zombies.

But here lies the problem: they're full CG. They jump around all over the place and basically are so over the top they aren't scary. Remember The Mummy Returns? With the mummies that chased the double decker bus? That's what they're like.

The scariest bit of business with them is when Big Willy goes into a building full of them and you see a group huddling together. THAT was freaky. A big group of computer effects jumping over cars? Nope.

The problem is that I've read the book and in the book they're vampires but still essentially human. And that makes them scary because we can see ourselves in them. Not so with the Infected in this film, they may well have been aliens or something.

It goes without saying that the original book was better but it's not all bad. Will Smith holds his own as the only screen presence for most of the film. The world he lives in is intriguing but the pseudo science around it could be left behind and the story just left to focus on the characters will to survive.

And, to it's credit, it does pull an ending that you wouldn't expect for a Will Smith film. It's not quite as depressing as the end of the Dawn of The Dead remake but it's not far off. I enjoyed it.

Now, to finish the review. As it's a new year, and I'm running out of weapons, I'm changing the wrap up. Reviews will now finish as follows:

In a word? Ordinary.