Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend has been brought to the big screen twice before, both times with mixed results — originally in Vincent Price's 1964 cheesefest The Last Man on Earth and then in the freaky-deaky 1971 Charlton Heston extravaganza The Omega Man (that's the one where Chuck mixes it up with a cult of hooded albinos known as "The Family"). This latest remake boasts a bigger budget and more ostensibly serious aspirations than either of its predecessors, but it's yet another mixed bag and just as much a guilty pleasure as the earlier versions.
Will Smith stars as the last human survivor of a deadly plague that has turned the world's population into bloodthirsty nocturnal creatures, and virtually the entire first half of the film consists of our hero and his faithful canine companion wandering the deserted streets of New York City. Director Francis Lawrence (Constantine) imbues these early scenes with both tension and an eerie poetry, finding undeniable power in the post-apocalyptic imagery of a depopulated Manhattan where stray weeds poke up through cracks in the pavement as if once again laying claim to the land.
Smith holds down the film fairly well, but his character veers unconvincingly from rational man of science to unhinged paranoid to cartoon action hero, inconsistencies that are hard not to notice since there's so little else going on here. We don't often see the creatures, but when we do, the movie unravels further as they're a pretty derivative lot, a fusion of familiar elements from 28 Days Later and The Descent, all largely rendered via cheap and thoroughly uninspired CGI. Traces of elegantly creepy atmosphere can be found throughout, but the effect is all but ruined by packs of dopey looking zombie dogs (honest) and a little too much Bob Marley music at the wrong moments.
I Am Legend (PG-13) Stars Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Salli Richardson and Willow Smith. Opens Dec. 14 at local theaters. 2.5 stars
This article appears in Dec 12-18, 2007.