I Am Legend (Full-Screen Edition) [DVD]

The movie, I Am Legend starring Will Smith, is based somewhat loosely on Richard Matheson's 1954 novel of the same name. Now, most people don't know who Richard Matheson is, but this is the writer who influenced both Stephen King and Dean Koontz where they were teenagers, not to mention thousands of other kids, myself included. This was the man who wrote some of the most famous Twilight Zone episodes of the sixties, especially Nightmare at Thirty Thousand Feet. This is the author of the famous horror novel, Hell House, which was also turned into a film. Flipping the coin over, Matheson is author of the famous romance novel, Bid Time Return, and this was also turned into a major motion picture, though most people know it as Somewhere In Time. There's also the novel and movie, What Dreams May Come. Richard Matheson is therefore one of the greatest writers of the last half of the Twentieth Century. Without him, we might not have had Stephen King and Dean Koontz writing such brilliant books.I Am Legend with Will Smith is the third adaptation of Matheson's novel, and Mr. Smith does a truly excellent job of portraying the lead character Robert Neville, capturing his aloneness and near insanity at being quite possibly the only human being alive. Neville was the military doctor experimenting with new drugs and viruses in the hope of finding a cure for cancer. What was discovered, however, wiped out most of the human population, while changing those still alive into flesh-eating zombies, or vampires, that move at a tremendous speed and seemed to be filled with an incurable amount of rage and violence. Because the creatures can't survive in the sunlight, Neville has control of the day when he and his German Shepard go out hunting for food and raiding the nearby DVD store. Neville is also still searching for a vaccine that will cure the symptoms of the virus. He uses zombies that he's captured, and the testing usually results in their deaths. The night, however, is totally controlled by the creatures, and Neville must always be home by dark in order to barricade himself inside his Washington Square apartment with its reinforced doors and window shutters. In time a confrontation is inevitable between Neville and the creatures, and this in turn eventually escalates into a full-blown battle at between life and death at the end.I had mixed feeling about the movie when I first saw it at the theater. When the Two-Disc Special Edition came out, I found myself enjoying the longer alternate version with a different ending. I think the director, Francis Lawrence, and the Special Effects people did a fabulous job of creating New York City a few years down the road after the plague has done its nasty work, showing the desolate streets with non-moving cars and trash lining the curbs and weeds growing out of the pavement. And, Will Smith, plays perfectly to this setting, creating a character that is near the end of his rope and talks to mannequins in the DVD store as a way of keeping himself from going crazy, then goes berserk when one of the mannequins shows up in a different location. Unlike a lot of viewers, I loved the creatures. The scene where Smith has to go into the basement of a bank to find his dog and runs into a group of them standing together in a group had me dropping popcorn all over my lap. I felt myself in the darkness with him as well as the strong fear that he was experiencing. This is definitely one of the best horror scenes done in the last few years.I believe the Two-Disc Special Edition with a longer version of the film and an alternate ending is the way to go. I do have to say that other than a different version of the movie, there isn't much else offered that I cared about. The makers of the DVD set could've done a feature on the long history of I Am Legend with an in-depth interview from Richard Matheson and a more detailed look at the making of the film. That will probably come in a later edition somewhere down the road. Anyway, this is a good, fun movie with some superb acting by Will Smith.

Love Will Smith. This was an amazing movie lots of twists and thrills.

Great movie. This movie was made when I liked Will Smith as an actor.

good movie

I've been a fan of Richard Matheson's 'I Am Legend' for many years. It's not a story that fits with popular film canons, it REALLY isn't. I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, but suffice it to say, the novelty of the ending works great on the page, but would probably have people storming the box office to get their money back as a film.But every so often, seemingly about every 20 years, it gets made into a movie, anyway.So what can you take from the book that WORKS? The desolation of a lone survivor in a great empty city.. the eerie beauty of that kindof place and what that life would be.For this viewer this film nailed it. No, it's not a slugfest, an action-packed thrillride.. No, Will Smith is not chewing a cigar and firing off one-liners to no-one for 2 hours (thank goodness- one can only imagine how this film would have played like with Arnold Schwarzeneggar, the original choice for the lead).So, what it IS is a stoic, QUIET observation of one person and a dog against a vividly empty Manhattan. I say vividly because the CGI erasure of people used in this film is one the nicest understated effects I've seen used in a sci-fi film in many a year.The vampires of the original story have been given a reasonable (if predictable) update, and CGI is used extensively to give them a jumpy, feral quality. If CGI makes them less believable, it at least succeeds in making them very unhuman, and the de-evolution aspect of these creatures makes this vision more isolating (and genuinely sad) than perhaps it should be.Will Smith knocked me out in this film. It's nothing more than a meditation on remaining hopeful and holding together, and he evokes a big range of emotion with hardly a word. No higher praise.As a sci-fi enthusiast, I'd give it 5 stars, but there's no way to resolve the ending of this story. The original ending is an ironic slap in the face to the reader, the Omega Man nails Heston/Jesus to a cross, and this film tries to find a hopeful middle ground, but it just doesn't satisfy... to their credit they had an alternate ending that gives the story a stronger humanist slant, and it's interesting, but even less satisfying than the one they chose to use.**EDIT** (I take my last comment back------I have since seen the blu-ray release with the alternate ending intact and feel it's a much better film, a better character study, and a better resolution.. though it raises more questions about Neville's motives for finding a cure that fall outside of the simple hero story)So, yes, it flops in the last 3 minutes, but it's the journey thru that stark beautiful city that you hope we don't live to see that makes it worth it.

I love this movie. Will Smith did such an awesome job, when doesn’t he? I think zombie like creatures that can run fast are scary but fast and smart, that’s a whole other level. Exciting, scary and sad. I love this movie, one of my favs.