I Am Legend

“Will is such a letdown,” observed Luke as we left the cinema, capturing the mood perfectly. Willard Smith III seems immensely likeable. In interviews he is polite, generous with his laughs and pleasingly humble. He clearly has a great eye for the popular but has also managed to make more serious movies. Yet somehow, his films always disappoint – and I Am Legend was no exception. It started off well, tension was built, the deserted Big Apple post-virus was impressive and believable. But all too soon, the promising beginning was ruined by a) schmaltz, b) faux-spirituality in the shape of a quasi-lecture on the continuing relevance of Bob Marley and c) gratuitous displays of religion. There was no conceivable need for most of the plot, motivation was at rock bottom and don’t even get me started on the impossible logistics behind Will’s basement laboratory. Unexpectedly, the CGI graphics were also very poor – the lions in the opening sequence were about as convincing as a repeat offender and the zombie-types looked pre-Jurassic Park. Big thumbs up go to the Alsatian who played an Alsatian with absolute conviction, but other than that I’d recommend a change of the title’s final word to ‘inadequate’.