[AerostarMonk]

I Am Legend

Well, this movie was better than I expected, much better in fact. Will Smith does a remarkable job as the last man on Earth. Smith is usually bashed, unfairly in my opinion, for playing the same character over and over again. The same can not be said for this performance. Here he plays Robert Neville, a military viralogist and last surviving human after a plague has wiped out mankind. There is a sense of hopelessness and a touch of madness that Neville displays that is almost heart-breaking. One starts to wonder if his experiments to find a cure for the plague are simply to keep his mind running so he doesn't take a long walk off a short pier, or bridge for that matter. There are plenty of those around for Neville has decided to secure himself in Manhattan, now a depopulated wilderness of ruins after a failed quarantine just 3 years earlier.

The first two acts of the film were incredible. The sense of impending doom and crippling isolation creeps into every frame of the film in these parts. If it weren't for the few lines that Neville speaks to his dog, Sam, and a few flashback scenes it would be almost dialogue free. But that doesn't impede the film at all, in fact it just helps the mood. But the third act seems a little tacky and just not up to scratch with the rest of the film. From then on it becomes an action film of sorts and adds elements that really didn't seem essential or even wanted by the audiences. It also seems that the entire FX budget was blown on the cityscapes because the infected people that show up every now and then look like extras from a Stephen Sommers movie that never was.

All that aside, I'm willing to give this movie my recommendation. It is indeed one of Monk's picks and you should go see it if you have the bread.

PS: The Dark Knight trailer was worth the admission itself. If you have no other reason to go see this movie go see it for The Dark Knight trailer on the big screen. Or if you're one of those lucky enough to be in the vincinty of an IMAX, for the 6 minute Dark Knight prologue.