Customer Reviews
suspend your boring disbelief and just enjoy it for what it is! - By: K. bruce, 27 Jun 2008 
I have not written a review for quite some time & after reading & hearing some of the negative criticism about this film i felt i had to give my opinion after watching it last week. In fact i almost didn't watch it based on some of the complaints i heard, such as: "The C.G.I. monsters are awful & reallly fake looking", "The ending sucks", erm yeah & that's about it, I don't think I've heard an other issues with it.
SO, first of alll this is not a typical action film, the Initial scenes echo loneliness & desolation, & I felt these scenes were truly amazing to behold, evoking sadness & compassion, seeing the wild-life roaming free in a once never sleeping city & the plant life breaking it's way through the concrete is truly breathtaking & alllows you to see through the everyday prison that we live in, consumerism, crime, the media, etc etc. And it makes you wonder why we need alll these things- is that what makes us human? could we actuallly survive without it? or do we need to thrive off of it in order to feel content with our lives? anyway.....
As in "the pursuit of happiness" Will Smith gives off an excellent performance, played out with passion & conviction, not once do you think: "this is just an actor in a film" (although you know that) he is very believable & you feel you are there with him alll the way.
Anyway onto the C.G.I, as a digital media student & an absolute film buff i have to say the C.G.I reallly isn't that bad, what matters is the performances, credibility & your capability to completely let go & immerse yourself in a good movie, if your one of those people that fath about with your phone & struggle to keep your eyes on the screen, (of any film) then your not going to be able to fully appreciate the movie for what it is, a visual glorification of a desolate dystopian future in which man-kind have evolved into vampire like creatures with a driving hunger for their human counterparts.
My thoughts on the C.G.I beings are so what if they don't look 100% real, they're not human anymore, so what does it matter? they still appear to be there in flesh & blood, they do not look 2-dimentional, Smith's interaction's with them both physical & emotional makes them believable enough, so it adds a touch of surrealism, big deal. you have to suspend your belief a little for the majority of films anyway, that's the whole point of it!
the only part where it was far too noticeable was when he had the female creature on the table & the camera showed her from a low angled perspective, her breasts looked "odd" & yes, she didn't look real, but the rest of the film works so it wasn't reallly an issue for me & i am normallly very fussy on such things!
Now, with regard to the ending, yes i found it a little frustrating, as anyone would know that he didn't have to do what he did, there were other options available as everyone who's seen it & can put 2 & 2 together will know, but on the other end of the scale we had watched his whole persona change throughout the film as we learnt what he had been through previously & that alll he had left was them taken away from him, & then saw him loosing hope & cracking, etc etc. so maybe that would cause him to do what he did?
Anyway the good news is that if you buy the 2 disc special edition you can watch the film with an alternative ending, & it's not just slightly different, (like with the alternative endings in cloverfield) it's major different! & changes the whole film! well sort of. Things that i had suspected with the "evil beings" alll came into perspective & gave the film a different spin questioning who the evil ones truly are? have they reallly lost alll their humanity? or are they just trying to survive?
I reallly preferred the Alternative ending & can't understand why they didn't use it as the theatrical ending? maybe they thought some would find it corny, which it may be just a little but much better than the original ending which just makes you feel annoyed!
Anyway, that's the end of my review, i strongly recommend potential viewers to watch the film for themselves & to watch the Alternative ending also if you can, it's definitely worth buying the special edition for! suspend your boring disbelief & just enjoy it for what it is!
Not an Americanised 28 days later, or a typical action flick, i would say it is more of an emotional affair that question's our humanity & capability to survive beyond consumerism, capitalism, & ultimately, evolution.
Will Smith make's it work for me. - By: J. C. Mcdermott, 25 Jun 2008 
When reading the original reviews in the film magazines I was given the impression that this was not a great movie on which to put my money on as the CGI was dissapointing.
So much so that this rendered the film "NOT VERY GOOD!".
Thankfully they were wrong & what you have here is a very moving film in parts played with full gusto by a very impressive Will Smith.
The way that he shows us through the camera how 3 years of isolation, 3 years of hiding & hunting & 3 years of trying to find the ever illusive cure for mankind's desease ... is as realistic as you could expect it to be if you were ever thrown into the same circumstances.
The crushing isolation is alll the more apparant when you realise that it was he that set up the mannaquins in the shops to make it feel that there was still some remenance of life.
The CGI of the vampirish city folk is not the best but is far FAR from being the worst either. You soon forget about the short comings & reallly get into the characters (or should that be character & dog?) .
Impressive, is the New York landscape.
Grass growing up through the roads, cars rusted where they stopped.
Shops stacked with never again to move items & four legged CGI wildlife roaming where once people trod.
The city scenes are breathtaking so much so that you can sense the isolaton.
Well worth the price & definately worth watching twice .. just incase you were wrong the first time!.
P.S. I havent read the book yet but am about to buy it & will then compare.
Another overated overhyped Hollywood hash up. - By: AVID READER, 22 Jun 2008 
The first part of this movie seemed very promising indeed, bleak apocalyptic etc..etc..
But as the movie came to its climax or should i say anti-climax, it just became lost, meaningless & pointless.
It basicallly looked as though Hollywood wanted to make more money, made a film with a high profile actor to bring in the crowds & shazam!!! Money maker!!!
Utter rubbish imho, which seems to be the norm these days, chuck in well known actors, CGI effects & poor story, rent before you buy.
I Am Legend, 2 disc edition. - By: Book Worm, 21 Jun 2008 
This film is 'I Am Legend' in name only, it bears very little relation to the book of the same name. This aside, it is a fairly good movie with post apocalyptic themes & a storyline that will keep you interested for the 96 minutes duration. Will Smith plays the role of the relationship starved army medical researcher well. You reallly feel for him when he talks to mannequins & at his relationship with his dog. The action is pretty good, although the computer graphics left a lot to be desired, both the various animals & the 'dark seekers' seemed very dated compared to other computer graphics films. This is an OK film, that should keep you watching until the end. As long as you don't expect a faithful rendering of the book you should be fine. Watch it with an open mind & you'll get what it sets out to be, an action film that shows another side of Will's acting & how one copes on his own in a world where everyone else is dead! The extras on the second disc are OK, but nowhere near as extensive as other films out there. A solid three star film.
Playing and preaching Bob Marley doth not a serious movie make. - By: Hugh Garske, 21 Jun 2008 The equation of a director of Britney Spears/Jennifer Lopez music videos + the saviour of the world from Independence Day was always going to give flickering noisy horde-fighting explosive tripe.
There's 10 better zombie movies on the shelves (just fast forward to get the same effect) & there's dozens of 'cool guy saves the world' movies but in them the central actor doesn't get out-performed by a dog. Will Smith does not even come close to being able to carry a movie on his own the way Tom Hanks did in Cast Away. When he starts trying to get a manequin to talk to him it's one of the most winceable scenes imaginable & you don't know whether a laugh track is going to kick in or whether an alien/robot/zombie is going to smash through the window to save him from the folly of his ridiculous acting.
The plot, acting, & monsters end up being a seriously annoying distraction to the very well done backdrop of ghost town New York...as soon as the monsters get introduced the rest is pretty much predictable popcorn selling drivel.
Avoid like the plague.
