I Am Legend Is A Really Good Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Until It Isn't

The world itself has come to an end. A supposed cure for cancer has instead mutated into an airborne virus that is killing the vast majority of humanity off instantly while turning a small portion of the populace into feral monstrous creatures that hate the sunlight and feed on living flesh. An even tinier slice of the human race has proven to be resistant to the virus and Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) belongs to that part of his species as he's managed to be immune to the sickness that has ravaged the planet. Now, three years after the apocalyptic pandemic began, he roams the streets of an abandoned New York City with only his loyal dog by his side.


Robert Neville spends his day occasionally taking advantage of the unique opportunities offered to a person whose living in an empty version of New York City like driving his souped-up hot rod as fast he wants or hitting some golf balls off an air carrier but he mostly spends his time in the daylight hunting for food or trying to come up with a potential cure for the horrific disease that altered the planet forever. Of course, he has to get this all done during the day because once night rolls around, he's gotta barricade his home up because those feral remnants of humanity emerge in the dark and they're hungry for human flesh.

For the first two-thirds of I Am Legend, it's maybe the best blockbuster Will Smith has appeared in during the twenty-first century. There's an effective somber mood conveyed in the shots of Neville navigating the apocalyptic remains of a once bustling city that serve as the backbone for some of the most visually evocative images director Francis Lawrence has ever had show up in one of his features. A more restrained approach to dialogue reinforces that uneasy mood in a similarly successful fashion. One can immediately get how subtly creepy it must be to live in this environment day in and day out and I Am Legend leaning heavily on the unsettling ambiance inherent in its setting serves it extremely well.

Will Smith also turns in strong work in his lead role that has him playing a more grim part compared to the more jovial characters he'd played in his career up to this point. A well-shot scene that has Smith going into a darkened cave populated by dangerous mutants to retrieve his dog is a notable high point for Smith's performance since he proves to be adept at depicting a realistic sense of fear-ridden desperation. Yep, for a large chunk of I Am Legend, this is one interesting and engaging movie....and then the third act comes around and it takes a sharp right turn into mediocrity and some plot points that are outright awful in execution.

After spending a little under an hour establishing a grim tale of a man fighting for survival in a world gone mad, suddenly a woman, Anna Monetz (Alice Braga) and her son show up and the more understated proceedings careen right into a cloying tale ripped off from Signs. Turns out, Robert Neville has, despite no prior indication that he's done so, eschewed a belief in God during his time in the apocalypse, but the climax ends up rekindling his faith by way of some laughably contrived coincidences that help him learn to "listen" again. It's such a weird angle for the story to go down since it doesn't fit at all in terms of tone or Neville's character prior to this section of the story. It's as if a studio executive thought the movie was getting too dark and demanded a more tidy conclusion to wrap everything up.

The final half-hour or so of I Am Legend also suffers heavily from the heavy presence of those mutants who are brought to life by way of CGI that would have been dated at the turn of the 21st century, let alone in 2007. The poor VFX used to bring these assorted mutants to life take you right out of the movie and make any attempts to create tension even in earlier sequences of the motion picture a fool's errand, it's just impossible to take these beings seriously as a threat. In addition to doing an abruptly introduced faith-oriented plotline, the climax also hinges heavily on a bunch of CGI mutants just storming Neville's compound, which means the numerous final scenes of I Am Legend revolve around either an awkwardly executed character arc for our protagonist or Will Smith fending himself off from poorly realized CGI mutants. It's an incredibly messy conclusion that's uber disappointing to experience given how good I Am Legend had been up to that point.