Director: Francis Lawrence
Year Released: 2007
Rating: 3.0
Will Smith finds himself alone in New York City after a virus Emma Thompson had some part in making (damn you, Emma) wipes out a large portion of not just the Big Apple but most of the world with most of those 'remaining' basically flesh-eating nocturnal zombies. The CGI is so-so - the scenes of a dismantled NYC are astounding, but the monsters are less convincing (they look a little too rubbery) and the third act undergoes some kind of religious conversion I didn't see coming (in effect, Smith becomes a suicide bomber because of a sign from a God he never recognized before), though as an action movie, it's very effective. I've said it before (and gotten laughed at), but I think Will Smith is one of the best actors of his generation and arguably has more range than Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe and many peers - the problem is he's got too much Bel-Air on the mind to work on small, simple projects that aren't tear-jerkers and don't open in every theater in the country and have a tiny shred of intellectual clout. But from the looks of it he's rather talk to dogs named Sam than play a character like Sam from Six Degrees of Separation ever again - if it's good enough for him it's good enough for me, but what about that legacy ... ?
