Movie Review: "I Am Legend" 2007

Will Smith is the perennial savior in most of his movies. If he's not flying around canyons shooting aliens, he's pretty much flying around shooting robots. Well, this time, he's running(or in some cases driving around) shooting half-dead zombies while seeking acure for a virus that has wiped out about 95% of the world's population. Think 28 Days Later with a semiautoimatic rifle and a Mustang.



The film starts out very strong with the visuals of a post-apocalyptic New York city sans the traffic and the cussing taxi drivers. Manhattan island is overrun by wildlife and wild crop among the ruins of what used to be the concrete jungle of buildings, fire hydrants and thousands of cars and trucks. Corn growing in Times Square and lions hunting for gazelles in Wall Street. Lurking in the shadows and emerging in the night, however are totally different more ferocious creatures. What used to be human beings have mutated into UV light sensitive vampire zombies out to kill every single living thing. Oh yes, and Will Smith is in the picture too as the only surviving human being with a pet dog named Sam.

The story moves back and forth between flashbacks and the present to kind of distribute the pacing of the narrative, although this technique worked in some levels, in most it just dragged us to the only moderately entertaining middle section of the movie.

By the time the last 20 minutes of the movie runs, you are treated with a teduious "what is he going to do now" feeling that just leads you to a very mediocre ending. According to rumors (which is just about as reliable as anything in the internet), test screenings showed that the original ending sucked major balls and eventually forced the producers to reshoot, which resulted with the half-baked ending we see in theaters now.

Great first half. Mediocre ending.


I Am Robot- I mean I Am Legend opens January 8 in Manila.

Rocketboy's Rating: 31/2 out of 5 stars (***)