There is a rich and somewhat cultish following of the I Am Legend book from which this movie was made. Written in 1954 by Richard Matheson, it's largely considered one of the major influences of the zombie and vampire genres to come. Before this Will Smith version, the book was made into a film two other times: once as The Last Man on Earth in 1964, and then as The Omega Man in 1971. If you're like me (and probably most of America) you've never heard of any of these other versions. So, this review is coming from someone who only has the Will Smith version to go on, having never read or seen any previous incarnations.

The set up: Will Smith is an Army virologist in the near future. Someone creates a cure for cancer, and sure enough, that mutates uncontrollably into a devastating virus. The virus mutates humans into vampire/zombie creatures that can only come out to play at night. Will Smith stays behind during the outbreak of the epidemic believing he can reverse the effects of the destructive virus. New York City is ground zero for the plague and Will Smith and his trusty dog are the only survivors -- except for the zombies of course.

Most of the film is very simple: how can the last man on Earth (at least the last man in NYC) stay alive long enough to save mankind from itself?

What I love about this film is the filmmakers' ability to focus on the what it must really be like living all alone in a big city with no other humans around. Smith gets to drive cool cars, hunt for deer, and pick out any DVD at the video store he likes. Pretty sweet deal! Oh wait, then there are the flesh-eating, blood-sucking zombie/vampire things that come out at night forcing Smith and his dog to bolt themselves inside the house until dawn each day. That's kind-of a bummer.

Which brings me to the zombies themselves. We've all become accustomed to computer generated (CG) monsters of every shape and size -- perhaps too accustomed. While CG is often necessary to achieve incredible results never before possible, I wish the filmmakers would have stuck with real people for the zombies instead of CG in this case. The rest of the film does such a great job of portraying a realistic, abandoned NYC, that it's almost painful to see these sub-human mutants come to life only in CG. Yes, I'm aware that most of the set pieces were CG, but they're so flawless you really believe 5th Ave has deer grazing on grass poking up through the asphalt. It's actually quite eerie and beautiful at the same time: like walking through the ruins of Rome just a few months after the fall.

Despite this flawed choice to use CG monsters instead of old-fashioned people in make-up, the monsters are still scary and threatening. They're strong, fast, and mean -- just what we came here to see, right?

Although some people didn't like the slow pacing of the film, that's exactly what I did like about it. It takes its time to build up the sense of loneliness and fear that Smith has to deal with all by himself. The film could've been just another fast-paced, fast-shudder, night-time horror flick, but the filmmakers took a fresh approach by following Smith around mostly in the daytime. His slow sink into loneliness and lack of hope is the real meat of the story. Whether he can save humanity is not as important as whether or not he can save his own mind.