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Robert Neville thinks he is the last human survivor of a catastrophic virus that has wiped out the earth's human inhabitants. With 90% of the population killed outright and the rest killed by the vicious and bloodythirsty "Dark Seekers", Neville is left alone to inhabit a World were the days are empty and the nights deadly.

"I am Legend" is a brilliant book that should have been easy to make into an epic movie. Unfortunately, this film is such a pale and watered down conversion that it loses nearly all the impact the book had. Do not get me wrong this is not a bad film. Thanks to the ever likeable Will Smith in the title role, Neville is a endearing hero and his lonely existence is both sad and funny as his closest relationship is with his dog and the mannequins he has rearranged around a local store. However, I cannot help but think that Smith's character is played in completely the wrong way.

In the book Neville is very much the anti-hero and the dilemma is whether we wish for his demise or survival. The film shies away from this by making Smith very much the gun-toting American hero. Sure he has the obligatory guilt-ridden past but I get the feeling I am not supposed to like him as much as I do. Smith plays Neville very similarly to how he played "Del Spooner" in another book to film conversion "I-Robot" and you get the feeling that he, and the scriptwriters have missed the point of the book.

If the complicated nature of the book was sacrificed for some effective gung-ho Hollywood action then that would be fine but "I am Legend" fails in this as well. In the book the infected were intelligent vampire-like creatures who tormented Neville nightly and made sleeping almost impossible. They stalked him by night as he did by day. In the film they have dispensed with this completely for some sort of Gollum hybrid creature that looks about as menacing as one of the Nolans. The CGI is also pretty suspect too with it being quite obvious throughout that these "Seekers" are insubstantial. When the action does occur it is fast paced and the new fashion for giving horrific creatures a fair turn of speed does add some tension. It is therefore unfortunate that the film is so dark at these points you struggle to make out what is happening. There are some good scenes such as the infected dogs waiting to attack while the sun goes down but these are too few amid a lot of Neville just traipsing round the City talking to himself.

The film takes massive liberties throughout for the sake of Hollywood dramatization which would be fine if they had not got so much of it wrong. Neville's constant flashbacks are annoyingly fragmented and nothing happens for so long that when it does, the inevitable explosive conclusion is just so cliched it really grates. Smith is a fine actor but he does have a habit of becoming bigger than the film he is in. "I am Legend" suffers because of this. It is more of a showcase for his talents than a faithful recreation of a classic horror.

An unknown actor could have won an Oscar for this and I have no doubt this would have been a better film without Smith in the title role. Despite moments of humour and emotion "I am Legend" is a completely washout for me. It is too long, frequently dull and does not do enough to justify its title. Read the book.

Learn more about this author, Perry Cox.
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