I Am Legend

In 2009 a cure for cancer was fond. Three years later that cure has all but wiped out humanity. While many of the people who survived became zombies, there are some people who are immune to the virus. Dr. Robert Neville is one of the few that are immune and he's spent the last three years trying to find a cure.

Pros: The movie does a good job of showing one person's struggle to survive in a city where he fells like he's the only person alive. During the daytime Neville hunts for food with his German Shepard Sam, exercises, tries to contact other survivors, and conducts experiments on mice in his lab. At night he has to board up his house to keep the zombies out. The zombies don't appear until Robert goes searching for Sam after she chases a deer into a tunnel. The doctor manages to capture one of the zombies, and takes her back to his lab so that he can try to cure it.

There are a few comedic moments in which Robert talks to manikins. In one scene Robert finds the manikin he named Frank standing in front on a tunnel. At first he shouts at Frank, then he shoots him. The other moment occurs when Robert tries to talk to a female manikin in the video store, because he promised that he would.

One of the most suspenseful moments occurs when Robert gets caught in a trap set up by a zombie hunter. Robert manages to escape, but after he does he and Sam have to fight the zombie and his dogs. During the battle Robert's dog is bitten by the zombie dogs. He tries to cure her, but he fails.

Cons: I Am Legend would be better if it had more moments of suspense, but those moments don't occur very often. Most of time I waited for something exciting to happen, but nothing does. Watching this movie is like playing a video game. You want to skip the long boring cut scenes to get to action, but you can't. You have to watch them before you can start playing again.

Another problem is the ending. When Robert meets Anna, another survivor she tells him that there's a colony of survivors in Vermont. I'm not sure that's the way the book the movie's based on ends, because I haven't read it.

I also have an issue with the flashbacks that occur at random points during the movie. They show what happened the night Robert's wife and daughter left New York City in a helicopter. Those scenes should have appeared during the beginning of the movie.

Final Verdict: While I Am Legend isn't one of Will Smith's best movies, it isn't one of his worst. He's the best actor in this movie, but he can only carry it so far. Like the Tom Hanks movie Castaway, I Am Legend has a good beginning, but the lack of suspense, and conclusion are a disappointment.

Scores (Out of 10):
Story: 6.0
Acting: 7.0
Direction:7.0
Visuals: 6.0

Final Score (Out of 10): 6.5

How the rating system works:
9-10.0=A
7-8.9= B
5-6.9= C
3-4.9= D
0-2.9= F

This year so far
Scores out of 10
Ghost Rider 4
300 8
TMNT 7
Fracture 5
28 Weeks Later 4
Shrek the Third 7
Ocean's Thirteen 8
Live Free or Die Hard 8
Transformers 8
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 8
The Simpsons Movie 9
The Bourne Ultimatum 9
American Gangster 9
Hitman 3
The Golden Compass 6.8