Editor Reviews:

Description:
Robert Neville is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable, and man-made. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City and maybe the world. For three years, Neville has faithfully sent out daily radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. But he is not alone. Mutant victims of the plague -- The Infected -- lurk in the shadows... watching Neville's every move... waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind's last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But he knows he is outnumbered... and quickly running out of time.

Amazon.com:
Will Smith stars in the third adaptation of Richard Matheson’s classic science-fiction novel about a lone human survivor in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by vampires. This new version somewhat alters Matheson’s central hook, i.e., the startling idea that an ordinary man, Robert Neville, spends his days roaming a desolated city and his nights in a house sealed off from longtime neighbors who have become bloodsucking fiends. In the new film, Smith’s Neville is a military scientist charged with finding a cure for a virus that turns people into crazed, hairless, flesh-eating zombies. Failing to complete his work in time--and after enduring a personal tragedy--Neville finds himself alone in Manhattan, his natural immunity to the virus keeping him alive. With an expressive German shepherd his only companion, Neville is a hunter-gatherer in sunlight, hiding from the mutants at night in his Washington Square town house and methodically conducting experiments in his ceaseless quest to conquer the disease.

The film’s first half almost suggests that I Am Legend could be one of the finest movies of 2007. Director Francis Lawrence’s extraordinary, computer-generated images of a decaying New York City reveal weeds growing through the cracks of familiar streets that are also overrun by deer and prowled by lions. It’s impossible not to be fascinated by such a realistically altered cityscape, reverting to a natural environment, through which Smith moves with a weirdly enviable freedom, offset by his wariness over whatever is lurking in the dark of bank vaults and parking garages. Lawrence and screenwriters Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman wisely build suspense by withholding images of the monsters until a peak scene of horror well into the story. It must be said, however, that the computer-enhanced creatures don’t look half as interesting as they might have had the filmmakers adhered more to Matheson’s vampire-nightmare vision. I Am Legend is ultimately noteworthy for Smith’s remarkable performance as a man so lonely he talks to mannequins in the shops he frequents. The film’s latter half goes too far in portraying Smith’s Neville as a pitiable man with a messianic mission, but this lapse into bathos does nothing to take away from the visual and dramatic accomplishments of its first hour. --Tom Keogh

Rating : - Great premise, good acting, too many dumb scenes
I Am Legend is another action flick release by Will Smith. This time Mr. Smith stars as Robert Neville, a US military scientist who helped create a virus-based vaccine against cancer that ends up becoming contagious, spreading to the entire human population, killing of 90% of humans, and turning most of the survivors into cannibalistic, light-hating creatures; i.e. vampire - zombies called Darkseekers. Most of the movie takes place in New York City, specifically in Neville's town home, and in the streets and buildings of Manhattan.

The drawbacks of the movie are primarily in the plot; specifically there are some very dumb scenes. Probably the biggest is the lack of firepower wielded by Dr. Neville. We learn in the movie that Dr. Neville happens to be an Army officer. We also see that Dr. Neville has been living alone in NYC for several years, often fighting of Darkseekers. Dr. Neville also has a lot of time every single day to drive thru the city, stop of at music and DVD stores to "rent" movies and CD's, arrange various store mannequins to provide him "company", play golf, and chase animals that have escaped from the local zoos. Yet in the entire movie, Dr. Neville has only three guns on him, an automatic rifle, and two handguns. For someone living in a city full of zombies that want to eat him, who has military training, and who has a lot of time to acquire firearms in a city that must be full of gun shops, I would think Dr. Neville would be loaded with guns. In the final scene when the Darkseekers storm his house, he uses a grand total of 1 gun with 1 clip, and 1 grenade. This is preposterous. I would have hundreds of firearms in that house, several per room, with lots of ammunition clips around.

A second stupid scene in the movie is when Dr. Nevill falls into the Darkseekers' trap and gets strung up by his leg. For a sober Army officer to fall into such a simple trap is ludicrous and mind-boggling.

Probably the dumbest part of the movie is why doesn't Dr. Neville start demolishing the hiding places of the Darkseekers. He clearly knows how to construct and use explosives, as shown in the movie's climax. And he clearly has the time to do this, so why does he not start blowing up various dark spots throughout the city as a way of clearing out the Darkseekers?

So all in all, this is a movie with a great premise and good acting, but some big plot holes that lead to very stupid scenes.