I saw Will Smith’s great performance in ALI, but trust me, I AM LEGEND is Will’s best performance ever!
He is truly the heart and soul of this disturbing, depressing, and sadly, kind of disappointing movie.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, who directed CONSTANTINE, I Am Legend is actually the third adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel. Previous films were Vincent Price’s The Last Man On Earth, and Charlton Heston’s bizarre Omega Man.
I haven’t read the book, but apparently all three films took many liberties with the source material, but hey, what can you do.

In Legend, Robert Neville is apparently the last man left on earth, after a terrible virus kills most of the population. That’s right, most.
By day, Neville, and his beautiful dog Sam have free reign over New York City, where the streets have been grown over with grass and bushes, and animals run free.
Neville is actually one of the military scientists who was involved in trying to contain and eradicate the virus, and he is still on a mission to “fix this”. He is slowly but surely losing his grip on reality due to isolation and fear.

The fear comes nightly, due to the remaining humans, who instead of dying because of the virus, were mutated into vampiric zombie cannibalistic beings. For the most part, Neville has things under control. But all good things must come to an end, eventually. This movie isn’t really great, because there are holes and inconsistencies, etc. The biggest flaw actually comes with the creatures, as they are fully CGI and easily recognizable as such. This has been the biggest complaint I’ve read on other reviews, and I have to echo it.
However, despite all it’s flaws, Will Smith’s performance is so amazing, I have to recommend I Am Legend highly. He is incredibly likable; at once an action hero, charming, comedic leading man, and stellar, emotionally charged tragic hero.
Truly amazing work.