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Top Critics (44)
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Fresh (154)
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When they do, banging their heads against plate glass as movie zombies always do, I started needing something else to think about.
I wouldn't dream of giving away the ending, but it's not likely to satisfy either the action crowd or Matheson fans.
I Am Legend is a grenade that goes off when least expected. It has more horror than heart, but it is never boring.
So often, sci-fi is overproduced, but I Am Legend doesn't look like a CGI extravaganza. It looks like an edgy suspense movie shot on the fly in New York City after the fall. And because of that, it's all the more effective.
Francis Lawrence's 'I Am Legend': The First Half - Its Better Half - Plays Like An Extremely Effective 'Anti-Michael Vick Flick'
Will Smith is in prime form.
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.
Inevitably, ideas give way to special-effects
I Am Legend is three film genres for the price of one: Science Fiction, Action, and Horror, and while it's no classic in any one arena it remains edgy fun.
This is no graphic shoot-'em-up but an intelligent, if sometimes sentimental, exploration of human decency and responsibility that ponders the limits of rationality and faith.
... I Am Legend stands as a nice-looking but empty film that is high on jolts but short on emotion, horror, and interest.
There are some good points, but there are too many ineffectual aspects that keep I Am Legend from being the sophisticated film it was clearly meant to be.
Smith turns in a terrific performance, nailing Neville's angst while allowing room for humor.
Smith still manages to find something touching and occasionally even tragic in the character.
For everything that is good about it, though, I Am Legend struggles against two primary problems.
It left me highly entertained, since out of the original story the filmmakers have created a different, but exciting and tense story filled with action, suspense and a lead character you can truly care about.
The movie is simply okay. Not awful, not great. Definitely beneath Smith's abilities, though.
I Am Legend is far from a feel-good film; it's a familiar (for fans of Stephen King's The Stand or Heston's Omega Man) post-apocalyptic adventure rife with chills and hopelessness.
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