I Am Legend

First there was The Last Man On Earth in 1964, then there was The Omega Man in 1971, now there is I Am Legend.

Will Smith will be the first African American man to play the role of Robert Neville a scientist that happens to be the last man on earth not infected by a terrible plague due to his immunity.

He spends his days in a post apocalyptic-like New York city trying to find other survivors like him and trying desperately to invent a cure using his own blood, but when the sun goes down he knows he has to lock himself away in his apartment because that is when the infected come out to eat.

Adapted by Mark Protosevich from the Richard Matheson novel, with an additional re-write by producer/writer Akiva Goldsman, and directed by Francis Lawrence (also directed Constantine), this larger than life vampire film will be released by Warner Bros. on December 14, 2007.

Somehow I bet this has a hell of a budget for a horror film, but I bet they'll be all over TV land calling it suspense, no fantasy, no I bet they'll discuss the high quality of the novel which they know is never like the movie. Anything to keep you from thinking this movie is anything but what it is--a horror pic.

A lot of people are praying to separate this from that other vamp pic 30 Days Of Night, but I think based on the preview that the story of course will be ten times more developed than the other vampire film, but I'm not so sure about the SFX . Where as 30 DON took pride in getting the special effects make up just right with only subtle tweaking of the eyes in post, I Am Legend feels awfully CGI heavy to me.

I hope I'm wrong. This is Mr. Lawrence's film and I rather liked his FX in Constantine (but not his story) so he could surprise me. I hope he surprises me because what I saw did not sit right with me. I don't care how fast you flash crappy CGI on the screen, you can't hide that it's crappy.