Reviews by Matt

I scare like a 5-year-old. I have said it before and I will stand by it until the day that I do not jump at the smallest of things. I was faced with a problem the other day, I really wanted to see “I Am Legend,” but it was going to be one of those movies that made the night a little tougher to get through. I had hoped to go to an afternoon showing so as to give myself a chance to push it to the back of my mind by the time I went to bed. Then through a series of incidents, namely the heat mysteriously stopping in my apartment, I went to the 10:30 p.m. showing. It was PG-13, so I figured I would be fine as far scary images went, I was wrong on that note, but right on another, unexpected one.

Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last man on earth. A deadly virus has wiped out the majority of the world’s population and turned others into creatures that live on blood. Yea, kinda like vampires, but they never say it in the movie. He is determined to find a cure and save those who have been infected. He and his dog roam the streets of New York City during the day farming and hunting for food, but at night must be locked inside to stay safe from the creatures.

Will Smith was awesome in “I Am Legend.” In fact he was much better than Tom Hanks in “Castaway.” He had to act to green screen, mannequins and a dog. Not much to work with, it is safe to say that he delivers the best performance of any in the movie. His performance is very powerful. He is both funny and dramatic. He has conversations with the “owner” of the video store as he rents a different movie each day. He is determined to find the cure and even captures one of the creatures in order to experiment on it.

Here is why I slept relatively soundly that night. The creatures were all done digitally. It was obvious that they were digital characters, hence, not scary. There were multiple times when what would have been a tense moment was marked by the realization that it was all fake.

This movie had so much potential. I was expecting great things and could not help but feel slightly disappointed at the end. The way things unfolded was interesting and more than enough to hold my interest, but when it was all said and done, I wanted more. There needed to be a little more background on the virus, the discovery of what it was doing and the reaction to it. All we get for background is mention of using nature to cure sickness and then NYC being closed off and an attack by the infected. The story focused on Neville and his day-to-day struggle to cure the virus while surviving alone.

With the exception of waking up to my neighbor shoveling his walkway at 5 a.m, I slept soundly that night. There were a few moments of jump out and scare you, but the creatures were far from frightening. The movie was worth seeing, but was not what I was expecting. I enjoyed it a lot, but was disappointed by how things turned out.

7 out of 10
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence.
101 min