I Am Legend: Not Quite Legendary (But Certainly Not Bad)
Why would my local cinema wait until the busiest (probably) movie-watching day of the year — the Thursday after Christmas — to let their prebooked-ticket machines and their credit card machines break down? I hate missing the beginning of a movie more than I hate missing the end, and bits in the middle.
Still, assuming nothing Earth-shattering happens in the first few minutes, like a virus killing everyone on Earth, I Am Legend really is a solid movie that paced itself and ended well. Some good bits with Will Smith showing how lonely being the last man on the planet can be.
The vampires are really quite poor and not terrifying at all. A shame after the atmosphere of tension that is set up every time just before you see one. It’s best to treat them as no more than simple plot devices to drive the core of the movie.
Worth seeing in the cinema or on DVD.
As a side note, this is the first time in years I’ve watched a movie in a crowded cinema hall. A good reminder of how horrible it is. It must be a universal law that if you bring 200 people to one place, there’ll be at least one baby that can’t stop crying, five guys who can’t stop pointing out the obvious in loud voices and two who are incapable of figuring out how to silence their mobile phones.