[Film] I Am Legend

Without having read the book, I enjoyed the movie to some extend. The barren deserted cityscape of New York conveyed vividly the bleak tone of the movie as well as the lonely isolation of its protagonist. Will Smith does a good job portraying the apparent lone survivor of an epidemic that wiped out most of the humankind and turned the rest into zombie-esq monsters. One can feel his maddening loneliness as he, accompanied only by his dog, goes through his daily routine of working out, hunting and waiting for contact from other survivors while trying to survive himself.

The movie does its job as a thriller and tries its best to bring some emotional substance to its main character (There was one very effective scene that brought many in the audience to tears). However, as soon as the movie switches its focus from the main character's internal struggles to battling with zombies, the movie becomes just another zombie movie with a lot of shootings and explosions. In the end, I Am Legend does not go beyond the confines of an action movie, even though it tries to decorate it with some sort of religious symbolism in the end.

6/10