I Am Legend

Director: Francis Lawrence
Screenwriter: Mark Protosevich, Akiva Goldsman
Starring: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Salli Richardson, Willow Smith
Running time: 101 mins
Certificate: 15

Sci-fi action movies usually go one of two ways. Either they become blood-thirsty shoot-em-ups or they provide considered thought-provoking visions of a terrifying future society. It's rare that the pair go hand-in-hand. With I Am Legend, Francis Lawrence attempts to achieve the impossible and blend the two by using gruesome CGI effects and Will Smith's big screen appeal to bring to life Richard Matheson's canonised and much lauded sci-fi novel. The end result is a clunky, but still relatively entertaining hour and 40 minutes of monster killing. However, any aspirations for this to become anything more serious than a gun-totin' horror flick are dashed by Lawrence's ham-fisted direction.

The plot revolves around the celebrated scientist Robert Neville (Smith) and his quest to save mankind from extinction. Neville is the last human survivor in New York (and possibly the world) following the eruption of a virus that was originally designed as a cure for cancer, which either kills or mutates humans into primal creatures of the dark. Neville is immune to the virus and dedicates his life to finding a vaccine using his own blood. Alone in New York, with only his pet dog Sam as company, he spends his life hunting down 'The Infected', watching DVDs and generally trying to live a normal life, while defending his home from attacks.

Bogged down under several layers of subtext and numerous themes about the state of the world, faith and heroism, there is a great film trying to get out of I Am Legend. The Matheson tale is ripe for movie adaptations (this is the third big screen adaptation of the novel) and the central principle that mankind meddling with nature can have catastrophic effects, although a little tired, is still relevant and interesting enough. However, Lawrence chooses too often to focus on the cheap action shot rather than studying anything more considered. Enough hints are dropped about the evolving behaviour of The Infected and Neville's gradual descent into madness, but neither are anything more than froth on the tip of a very basic action flick.

Will Smith is no stranger to the sci-fi genre, having worked successfully on Independence Day and a little less successfully on I Robot in the past. His performance, as far as the movie allows, is superb. He revels in his one-man show (for he is the only actor for large chunks of the film) and he is one of the few A-listers that could manage to add warmth and humour to Neville's character without giving cause to cringe. His double team with Sam the dog could have been dire in the hands of less accomplished comics, but he succeeds in his usual manner, playing the all-American hero as well as anybody, barring perhaps Tom Hanks. However, he isn't really allowed to really stretch himself in this film because the scenes showing Neville's psychological disintegration are regularly cut short. Lawrence repeatedly opts to chuck in a few blockbuster-style action sequences - which seem thoroughly out of place - rather than ask Smith to flex his thespian muscles.

The CGI effects are undoubtedly the biggest let-down on this movie. Looking like something out of Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings, The Infected are too other-worldly to cause alarm or concern beyond an initial shock value. They may scare a few innocent children that stumble across the movie, but their ghoulish and alien-like nature sends the movie into basic Hollywood movie territory, which is a shame because Smith's performance and Matheson's original text offer outlets for so much more. As so much of the movie is spent adding touches of authenticity to Neville's existence, making us believe that this really could happen in 2009, it's peculiar that they saw such elaborate and explicit use of CGI as a suitable way to place The Infected on the screen.

Having said all of that, there's no denying that I Am Legend repays your ticket money. Smith conjures up enough laughs, drama and old-school action in this one-man show that the cinema cash tills will keep ticking over nicely this Christmas. Audiences will lap up the special effects and amazing shots of a desolate New York, but at the same time they certainly won't be thinking of the film's various subtexts after they've made it out of the theatre's front doors. It's a better-than-average blockbuster, which sweeps around some large ideas and interesting themes, but never delves for long enough to make this film a true classic.