Rating:7/10
I am Legend is a book that Robert Matheson wrote.  Well, the book that I purchased had that and several short stories with that.  But the first story was I am Legend.  I have never read past that story.  I tried, but could never get past that.  I was so engrossed by that story that once I started reading it, I did not put it down.  The thing that always shocked me about that story was the ending and why it was called I Am Legend.  The hardest thing about watching a movie that is adapted from a well known book, video game, comic book or something in which the source material is well known, is wondering how bad is this going to get butchered.  And in some cases, the story is butchered badly.  Let's take Stephen King for instance and two movies based on his stories.  Let's look at The Running Man and The Green Mile.  The Running Man was totally destroyed.  I watched that movie once and could never watch it again, especially the way the book absolutely butchered the movie.  It was beyond horrible.  I was so angry watching that movie I just couldn't believe what a piece of crap that turned out to be.  Now with The Green Mile, that was different.  The Green Mile was very similar to the book, except for the Paul Edgecomb's tale of his elder years in the between, but as good as The Green Mile the book was, the movie was also that good and has become one of my favorite movies of all time.

Now you may ask, what does this have to do with Robert Matheson's I Am Legend?  Well, I decided to take the blinders off to watch this and just watch it for what it was.  And to really judge this movie you have to take a look at Will Smith's performance.  It was powerful.  When I think of Will Smith, I think no brainer action block buster movie.  Hey, there is no one better at that than Will Smith.  And I will be the first to admit that he exudes a great deal of charm and has had chemistry with his co stars on just about any movie I've ever seen him in.  In this movie, he even had great chemistry with the dog.  He even tried to adopt the dog after this was filmed but it was a no go.  Back to Smith's performance.  Well with this movie, this is were Smith shows his acting chops, because he has to carry this movie on his shoulders for at least an hour by himself.  I really didn't but the fact that he was going crazy until something happened to his dog and he was in the video store.  That was when I could tell her was going crazy.  Powerful stuff.  When he needed to show pain or the pretty much the right emotion, he was right there on cue.  Just based on his performance alone, I could have easily given this movie a ten.  But there were some disappointments as well.  The CGI creatures.  They were horrible looking.  Now if the whole movie would have been CGI, they wold have looked liek they fit in, but when you do a live action movie like this, it just does not work.  That was just plain bad.  It would have been a lot better with people in make up.  Now as far as watching this movie went, I will have to admit that I put my blinders back on.  Especially when the girl and the child came in.  I could not wait for what was going to happen next.  I just sat there and waited and waited and waited.  It did not happen.  In all honesty, the people who made this movie really dropped the ball with her character.  They did have a decent blue print with the book and kept some of that in the movie, but this is the one thing they should have kept the same with the book. 

I watched both endings of this movie.  Both endings actually kind of felt like they would have been tacked on.  I'm kind of surprised that the Alternate ending was actually kept of to the side.  Normally, you would have expected the happier ending to be the one shown at the theater.  It wasn't bad, but it seemed to drag a little bit and it didn't seem right.  It would have left an opening, possible for a sequel and I'm not sure that would have worked.  Now, for the ending that was shown for the theater, is the surprising one.  I would have expected this one to have been set aside for the alternate ending.  And this almost leads to a sequel like Fido(if anyone has ever seen that), whereas there are safe zones, but the dead actually become pets.  I will be putting my review of that up soon.  But both endings had some give and take.  It was almost like they had to sacrifice one idea for another and if you have seen both endings, you might know what I mean.

Now this is a long review, especially for me, but I really loved the story I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.  And I urge you that if you get the time, you should really read this book.  It will give you more insight to what was happening with Robert Neville and it would make some sense with the movie.  I lent this book out to all my friends and they have all loved this book.  As a matter of fact I had no intentions of seeing this movie until a good person by the name of Jessica told me about it and I am very glad she did, because I really did enjoy this movie.  There were some very intense scenes in which I was literally on the edge of my seat and putting down my slice of pizza in fear of it falling to the floor and making a mess.  It does have a rewatch value and I might have this movie playing at my next movie party.