Film 003 - I Am Legend

(2007, colour, 101 mins)

Director – Francis Lawrence

Starring – Will Smith, a dog, loads of CGI people with dodgy jaws

Let's face it: Will Smith is at his best when he's starring in big-budget action blockbusters. Men In Black, Independence Day, I Robot, the Bad Boys films... hell, even Wild Wild West. His latest, I Am Legend, is based on the classic sci-fi novel of the same name and sees him taking on the role of Robert Neville, a doctor stranded in New York three days after a huge virus outbreak wipes out most of the city and transforms the remaining residents into cannibalistic mutants.

These mutants are actually the least impressive part of the movie for me: their faces look like fleshier versions of the androids in I Robot and when they scream with rage (as happens at least once every five minutes), their jaws drop needlessly low and they end up resembling the main villain in The Mummy (1999).

That said, I Am Legend is a pretty atmospheric and well-paced film, despite the fact that for most of the first part of the movie all you're really watching is a man with a dog driving round an empty New York. Once Smith encounters the "daywalkers" things start to pick up a bit, but it's all generic horror movie fare as he first finds himself wandering through a pitch black house infested with them, and later ends up slowly trying to escape with a wounded leg as the sun goes down and they close in on him (they are harmed by exposure to sunlight).

I Am Legend follows a load of typical movie clichés and it's pretty predictable throughout. If a film has a doctor trying to find a cure for a virus and all through the film he keeps trying new treatments, getting more and more frustrated as the film progresses, it should be pretty obvious that he'll find the cure just as he needs it the most. If zombie films usually involve one friend turning into a zombie, and the main character of this film only has one friend, it should be obvious what's going to happen. And if he keeps having flashbacks recalling his attempt to get his wife and child out of New York before the military seals off the city, you should really be expecting that eventually you're going to get the flashback that shows it didn't quite go as planned.

You may be getting the impression that I didn't like I Am Legend: far from it. It looks fantastic, the soundtrack is amazing and Smith's acting is excellent throughout. As long as you can put up with the pretty generic storyline and the rubbish CGI Mummy-monsters then you're in for a treat.

3 out of 5