Some how immune to an unstoppable, incurable virus, military virologist Robert Neville (Smith) is now the last human survivor in New York City and maybe the world. But he is not alone. Mutant plague victims lurk in the shadows...watching Neville's every move...waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind's last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find an antidote using his own immune blood. But he knows he is outnumbered...and quickly running out of time.
 
"...terrific mindless fun: crackerjack action with gnashing vampires barely glimpsed (and scarier for that)..."  David Edelstein, New York Magazine
"...a stunning glimpse into how the city - as we know it today - might look in 2012 if it were abandoned in 2009."  Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
"As Tom Hanks did in "Cast Away," Will Smith pulls off this half-insane role perfectly."  James Berardinelli's ReelViews
"A scary, inventive, exciting and breathless adventure that combines the best elements of "Children of Men," "Escape from New York" and "The Road Warrior"..."  Kyle Smith, New York Post
"...the opposite of "Transformers": It's all about the unsettling silence, not the noise."  Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"...fully affirms Smith as one of the great leading men of his generation."  Scott Foundas, The Village Voice
"...three movies in one: a futuristic effects-o-rama, a zombie thriller and a survivalist parable."  William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"Mind-blowing excitement."  Pete Hammond, Maxim
 


Editor's Note

In I AM LEGEND, Will Smith joins the ranks of Vincent Price (in 1964's THE LAST MAN ON EARTH) and Charlton Heston (in 1971's OMEGA MAN) as the star of an adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel of the same name. Often surprising in its focus on loneliness and loss, this thoughtful, eerie, and restrained sci-fi horror film provides a parade of startling visuals, but never allows special effects to overcome the human element. Smith, in a strong performance very different from his usual persona, is Robert Neville, the lone survivor in a New York City where streets are overgrown and deer gambol among deserted automobiles. Following an epidemic, the Earth's population has been turned into an army of nocturnal zombies. Immune to the virus, military scientist Neville searches for a cure in his Washington Square townhouse. Haunted by visions of his family leaving quarantined Manhattan two years prior, he drives through the city with his German Shepherd, Sam, by day and barricades his home from the monsters nightly. But when Anna (Alice Braga)--another immune stranger-finds him, they will have to fight the onslaught twice as hard.

Akiva Goldsman and Mark Protosevich's emotionally-charged script showcases the charisma of Smith, who commands the screen alone for most of the picture (aside Abbey, a talented German Shepherd). Director Francis Lawrence (CONSTANTINE) uses music minimally, wisely allowing the eerie cityscapes to remain mostly silent. The set pieces, including an overgrown, deserted Times Square and a lion hunting a deer in the Flatrion District, are goosebump-inducing moments of stark beauty. Though some may question the rendering of the monsters in CGI instead of using actors, it does allow them to be frighteningly acrobatic. A chilling and effective adaptation of a horror classic, I AM LEGEND is also a thought-provoking piece of Hollywood filmmaking.