One Man and his Dog

I Am Legend - 3/5

This film, adapted from the novel by Richard Matheson, tells the story of Robert Neville - apparrently the last survivor of the human race after a genetically engineered virus killed most and turned the rest into vampire/zombie-like Dark Seekers. The novel's been adapted before - as the Charlton Heston starring The Omega Man - and this version has been around the houses for quite a long time - it almost got made at the end of the 80s starring Arnie and directed by Ridley Scott. This would almost certainly have removed both the greatest strengths and the greatest weaknesses of the version we have now.

For one thing, you can't really imagine the governor of California really getting into the psychology of the character left alone for so long in the way that Will Smith does. In many respects, jumping genres, the nearest benchmark would be Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Smith is superb, showing yet again how far he's come from the Fresh Prince days. His is a convincing and touching performance, full of telling little details, like the way he anthropomorphises his dog as his only companion. Incidentally, the dog also gives a great performance.

But where you win, you also lose - and you can't imagine Ridley Scott in the 80s (the man who created such a real sense of terror in Alien) being so reliant on CGI for the Dark Seekers. And what horrendous CGI it is too - at times the movie loooks like a bad computer game from 5 years ago. As these creatures are still essentially human, actors in make-up would have been a better choice. The film illustrates that just because you can do something with technology, doesn't necessarily mean you should.

And then there's the ending, which without giving too much away is real Hollywood deus ex-machina stuff, and feels unsatisfying after the work Smith has put in before. This is a case of a central performance which lifts the film into the very watchable, but is deserving of a better film around it.