Movie Review - I Am Legend

I am, well, a rip-off really. OK, here's the Will Smith version. I've seen Chuck Heston in the classic Omega Man. I've seen the dodgy I Am Omega which is truly awful. I'm yet to see Vinnie Price in the original that set all these imitators off but hopefully I will before the year is out. Will Smith is Robert Neville, an Army Colonel, seemingly the last uninfected human living in New York. Well thats right out of Chuck Heston, isn't it? He travels around with his dog, foraging for provisions.

The fact that the city has reverted back to the wild with deer and lions (from the zoo, I assume) roaming freely is a good idea. the infected have been caused by a Doctor (Emma Thompson) who had discovered a cure for cancer by mutating The Measles virus. It's side effect is creatures who thirst for blood, hate sunlight or UV and are hairless. Pretty much vampires then. These aren't the organised infected from Omega Man, these are pretty much mindless hunters.

We are given insights into Neville's life and family before the disaster as flashbacks He seemingly find a cure that heals a rat and tries it on an infected woman but it doesn't work. Later in the film he is caught in a trap and his dog is killed. He descends into madness without his dog for company seeking sympathy from mannequins. Driven seemingly insane he goes out at night and attacks an entire pack of infected in his jeep but is saved from certain death by an uninfected woman.

We also discover (well we infer from information given) that his wife and son died in a helicopter accident on the night of the evacuation. We also meet his female rescuer Anna and her young son Ethan (who Neville thinks are his own wife and son in moment of insanity). In a conversation with the woman we find out they refer to the infected as "The Dark Seekers". The night attack on Neville's home is pretty much right out of Omega Man as well. For an Army Colonel, Neville is an awful shot and very bad under combat stress.

Forced to shelter in his lab they discover his cure is starting to take effect on the female he had injected earlier in the film. Giving a sample of her blood to Anna, he hides her & Ethan in a cupboard in the wall. And then blows himself and a lab full of Dark Stalkers up with a fragmentation grenade. (Which incidentally don't produce fireballs like the one in the film). So our hero dies, exactly like Heston in Omega Man. Anna & Ethan drive off to the survivors colony in Vermont which turns out to be real and she gives them the vial of blood containing the antibodies. The movie ends weakly for such a strong film.
This is better than "I Am Omega" but not as good as "The Omega Man".