'I am Legend' is not what it could have been

What starts out with a premise and a performance by Will Smith that pulls you into the desolate near future ends with a rushed finale and many questions unanswered. Plot threads about how the world - specifically New York City - came to be a ghost town as well as Smith’s character’s own personal survival tale, while initially shown in illuminating flashbacks, end abruptly without satisfactory conclusions. Add in the many interesting potential avenues worthy of exploration but not taken by the director, and I left with a feeling of disappointment.

Smith is Dr. Robert Neville, a military scientist who was working on a cure to a virus that infects almost the entire world population in the near future. He refuses to evacuate the city and instead stays to continue his work to cure those transformed by the sickness. But he is soon alone in a city crawling with these creatures that are sensitive to light, carnivorous and sub-human, spending his days exploring the quickly devolving city and nights holed up in a safe house.

Smith portrays Neville as a self-motivated individual seeking to rescue humanity, while slowly decaying mentally from his lack of human interaction. In a turn similar to Tom Hanks in “Castaway,” Smith is almost the entire film. While his day-to day routine in the first half of “I am Legend” is fascinating, as we watch him hunt, explore and set traps, dramatic changes in the second half makes the film lose its edge. Neville doesn’t consider obvious changes in the creatures’ behavior, which would make a normal person at least question what was happening. Also, the flashbacks stop prior to adequately explaining what happened to Neville’s family, or how Neville has survived up to this point.

The monsters seem to be entirely effects-driven, giving them a non-human feel. Some of the special effects look to be recycled from the “Mummy” movies, especially in how the creatures move and scream. When the monsters were out there somewhere in the dark, they were at their scariest, but once you get to fully examine them, that initial terror wears off.

While Smith manages to keep the story credible, and his performance is compelling in itself, the director allows the film to slide off the rails at the end. Smith puts all his emotional and physical resources into the role as the sole survivor, but he can’t salvage what is ultimately an inadequate second half of the film.

End of the world aficionados and Will Smith fans will find this movie scary and exciting at first, but it ends up falling short of what it could have been.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence.