Watched I am Legend with Victoria last weekend.  In case you didn’t catch it, this is movie adaptation number three or four of Richard Matheson’s classic of the same name.  Matheson’s book is a scarily forward-looking vision of epidemic writ large.  The movie is a surprisingly backward-looking version of the same.  The topic felt old for some reason, and the theatrical ending wiped out the ideas that were central to Matheson’s story.  I won’t ruin it for you, but after watching the DVD, make sure to watch the alternate ending here.

Despite the mishandling of Matheson’s ideas, I did enjoy the movie a lot.  Smith does a good job of portraying the awful loneliness of being the last man alive, although his efforts at channeling Tom Hank’s as he chats with inanimate objects were a little painful.  The scenes of deserted New York are fantastic and eerie.  The vampires are well done.  Though the CG isn’t quite there, they manage to give the Vampires a lot of personality.  The head vampire in particular has this particularly creepy grin at one point that had me relocking the doors to the house, and checking the windows.  If looks could kill…