I am Legend

Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend is an excellent portrayal of a lone man in a plague ridden Los Angeles and his decent into a sort of isolation madness amid a horde of mutant vampires. The 1970 film version starring a robust Charlton Heston changed the vampires to a more palatable Zombie threat, but did, I remember, explore the psychological effects being the "only man on earth" would have on an individual, if the unthinkable ever happened.

I enjoyed the first half of Francis Lawrence's 2007 remake, as hero Will Smith actually makes you believe that insanity is only a hairs breath away. I have always found Smith an incredibly charismatic and personable actor, and he gives his role of Robert Neville a depth which enhances an above average action movie to something quite moving at times. The audience actually believes he loves and needs his only companion (a beautiful Alsatian dog), and there was one or two sniffs of emotion from the stalls when Neville speaks line after line of the Shrek movie screenplay perfectly in time with a playing dvd, thus reinforcing his despair

What let's the film down, is that it drops the psychological torment that is key to the narrative after an hour and concentrates all attention on the vampire threat with some very variable computer-generated imagery (CGI). The mutants, I am afraid, just do not look real and it is this fakery that reduces the dramatic punch the film has in its action scenes.
Having said that, several of the action sequences are pretty exciting!, the recreation of a dead New York complete with deer grazing on 42nd Street is wonderfully evocative and set pieces such as a flash back to the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge are truly spectacular.
But the film is carried by Will Smith and it is his performance which saves it. I would have loved to see more of his decent into his own inner hell, but I guess the average American audience wants to see more mutants than be challenged with the psychology of loneliness.

A good 8/10