I Am Legend

This movie was very bad. The one aspect I did like about it is that it illustrated a world abandoned by humans (a city overgrown by weeds, etc.) and one man's plight to survive in it. I love that kind of theme. But that's one of my own personal quirks, so for you, my readers, this movie had no saving grace.

The movie was pretty monotonous.. it was the same settings, the same area, with no other characters (not even extras), over and over again day by day. That alone just leaves me with a very empty feeling - the feeling that I'd just watched a mostly abysmal movie. But of course, there *were* the zombies..

The zombies were supposed to be humans that had been converted by disease, but yet they were portrayed with a completely different cultural mentality.. they were just supposed to be *automagically* evil. Oh, and also super strong. Since when does disease make people superhuman? Oh, well. BTW, they also went through a lot of trouble to try to feast on the one human surviving in that area..you'd think a group that large would starve to death if that were their main source of food. But the main thing that bothered me about them wasn't even the lack of realism; it was that they tried to keep the zombies' portrayal at a totally superficial level...even though half the movie was about them. And they did try to get into somewhat sentimental areas with them, for example something involving them having a leader, but without providing any character development or elucidation at all. It was all just disconcerting.

But here's the stupidest part..
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The hero dies without reason. Firstly, the scenario that they made for him die in was *completely transparently* ad hoc/contrived/gratuitous/whathaveyou. I mean even *bad sci-fi* is better than this was, at least it's colorful. I'd never seen something so obviously pulled out of a writer's arse in a movie. And it's not EVEN just that -- add to it that even *within* the gratuitous scenario that had they set up for him to die in, his death was unreasonable. He could have *easily* done something differently in order to defy death, or rather, to not *jump into* it (there was enough room in the compartment)..AND they could have easily changed the scene so that he couldn't have done that, but yet they didn't. So they obviously just put no effort into it at all...probably just like the rest of the movie.
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The bottom line here is that I don't get how such a dismal writer/director was graced with the likes of Will Smith, and I'd recommend not wasting your time with this movie. Unless, of course, you're one of the millions of moviegoers who are apparently easily impressed..