Almost three quarters of this movie is devoted to developing Will Smith's character and I think that is one its main faults. It is like the Birdman of Alcatraz somehow morphs into another installment in the Resident Evil series in the last fifteen minutes or so of the movie. In addition to that, the movie waits so long to begin to develop the other characters who enter the storyline that the viewer doesn't have the chance to really bond with any of them before the end of film, at least not to a degree sufficient for them to take the place of the Will Smith character. So the film leaves the viewer with a sort of empty feeling when it is over, and it doesn't intend to do so, which is a disappointment.

The special effects in the film are appropriately dazzling. The scenes of an empty New York City, which has been overrun with vegetation and wild animals, are top-notch digital effects - except for one male lion that, to my eye, looked like he would have been much more at home in a Shrek movie. The animal was simply too cartoonish to fit in with the rest of the film and I don't know why the director ever left that scene in the film. Of course there are a couple of moments where the zombies, too, become a bit too stretched into cartoonism, but since they are in the midst of action scenes when it happens, you could pretty much overlook those moments. That lion, though, bothered me from the early part of the movie.

While I don't regret watching I Am Legend, and I think Will Smith delivered a great performance, I can't go beyond three out of five stars for the movie as a whole. The storyline is overdeveloped at some points and underdeveloped in other crucial points. This situation really detracted from what could have been a great movie. In addition, the entire story line is so similar to the Resident Evil series that I couldn't help having a "been there, done that" feeling throughout the entire movie.