I Am Legend: Critic Reviews

...The film is well-done, a case of suspenseful competence trumping questionable relevance.

In spite of its third-act collapse into obviousness and sentimentality, I Am Legend is among Will Smith's better movies.

There is something a bit thin about the story, and just as in 28 Days Later, I find that digital, rage-filled zombies halve in dramatic interest with every second that passes.

[Smith's] powerful performance is not enough to save the movie -- initially a potent meditation on loneliness and an absorbing doomsday action movie -- from taking a wrong turn and never getting back on track.

Instead of maintaining its edgy sense of constant discomfort, the movie is compelled to make Neville as fuzzily adorable and messianic as possible.

I Am Legend is actually about the last man on earth played by one of the last real movie stars on earth.

If, as a movie, I Am Legend is less stylistically mind blowing and intellectually ambitious than last year's Yuletide dystopia, Children of Men, it's not far off.

The Manhattan movie of the year, Francis Lawrence's I Am Legend, offers a stunning glimpse into how the city -- as we know it today -- might look in 2012 if it were abandoned in 2009.

The herky-jerky script, by Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman, favors vignettes and set pieces over dramatic development, and those damned zombies are everywhere, overwhelming the proceedings with their slobbering and howling.

Lawrence's direction is patient, solid and suspenseful, and his vision of a lone fellow wandering through the atavistic hulk of Manhattan yields an indelible portrait of post-cataclysmic solitude.

I admire the intent of Mr. Smith, who has made it his mission to mix escapist fare with socially relevant material. Legend seems to split the difference and land in the middle of nowhere. That's a lonely place for moviegoers to be.

What should be shattering is often merely intriguing.

The first two thirds and change of I Am Legend is terrific mindless fun: crackerjack action with gnashing vampires barely glimpsed (and scarier for that) and how'd-they-do-that New York locations that retroactively justify the traffic jams.

The movie works well while it's running, although it raises questions that later only mutate in our minds.

For most of the way it's starker (even with the comic relief) and more eerie in its atmospherics than the usual big-budget monster.

The popcorn elements are well handled, but what lingers is the sense of urban despair.

It's almost as if the filmmakers wanted to say something about isolation, and loneliness, in the urban environment. Almost.

Director Francis Lawrence makes eerie, effective use of New York City locations drained of human activity, shooting them for maximum anxiety and agoraphobia.

Smith is worth watching; the movie is not.

I Am Legend is carried for a long while on the strength of Smith's performance, but even he can carry it only so far.

I Am Legend is a grenade that goes off when least expected. It has more horror than heart, but it is never boring.

Remarkably eerie yet annoyingly larded with cheap horror-film shock effects.

Is going to be bigger than crucifix sales on Judgment Day. Scary, inventive, exciting and breathless adventure.

This can't-miss concept, in development for decades, was done first and done better in 28 Days Later.

'Nothing worked the way it was supposed to work!' Will Smith rages from his solitary hell in I Am Legend, yet this remarkable sci-fi thriller works a lot better than anyone could have expected.