Robert Neville is a brilliant scientist. But when a man-made virus can't be contained, Neville finds himself the last human survivor in New York City and potentially the world. For three years he faithfully sends out daily radio messages, desperate to find other survivors. But he is not alone... Mutant victims of the plague (The Infected) lurk in the shadows. As perhaps Earth's last hope for mankind, Neville is driven only by the desire to somehow reverse the effects of the virus before it's too late...

I am Legend is one of those movies that took me totally by surprise. This is not your typical American blockbuster. This is no butt-kicking, feel good flick designed to make the masses feel patriotic and start thumping their chest in an "ain't America swell" kinda way that so many films in this vein tend to do. No, this is a good solid, tale that takes our lovable hero to the brink of madness and then attempts to push him over.

Will Smith does an incredible job of portraying Robert Neville, the tortured scientist who is haunted by his inability to save mankind from the virus. For over three years he has lived alone in New York, with only his trusty dog Sam for company, attempting to find a cure for the virus. In that time he's started to go a little crazy - every day he drives down to the local entertainment store to borrow a handful of CDs and DVDs. Inside and outside the store he has erected shop dummies, with which he has formed one-sided friendships in a bid to combat his feelings of isolation and the lack of any real human contact.

The movie's original, but unreleased, ending (which is included on the second disc of the 2-disc collection) gave the movie a completely different conclusion. The version that was eventually released in cinemas gives the film a lot more of an impact and sells the story more believably than I was expecting. Without ruining the plot of the film, I was expecting everything to be wrapped up neatly, with Neville overcoming his demons, curing the virus and being carried through the streets of New York by the cheering masses - who have organised a ticker-tape parade for him... well, maybe not that overboard. But I was certainly expecting a sappy ending.

The biggest problem I had with this release was the actual presentation. I mean, what where Warner Home Video thinking. All of the material would have easily fitted onto one disc. You don't need the entire movie repeated - just the last 10 minutes added as a featurette labelled Alternate Ending. Oh, and the worse crime of all is... er... the movie's title actually makes no sense whatsoever with the alternate ending on the movie.

If you buy the single disc release, then you'll get the original theatrical release (the one with the far superior ending) of the movie as well as four Animated Comics (21 min, 40 sec). These are pretty interesting, but an audio commentary or a behind the scenes featurette wouldn't have gone amiss.

For those that buy the 2-disc edition, you get a pretty impressive 3D lenticular DVD slipcase; the entire movie again (but with the original, unreleased ending); The Science of I Am Legend (19 min, 48 sec featurette that has interviews with Smith and the director as well as virus experts); a digital download (for some reason you can download this movie to your computer. Not really sure why anyone would want to do that when they've already got it on DVD... but then what does a bloke in his late 30's know?); and some bonus content that can be played on your PC, but personally I couldn't be bothered to give this the time of day. Why this couldn't have been included on the disc is beyond me. The only thing that sounded interesting was the 50 minutes of behind the scenes material.

This is the sort of DVD release I hate having to review. The movie, in my opinion scores a good, solid 8 or 9, but the whole thing is let down by a complete lack of thought on the presentation side.

To sum up: great movie, incredibly poor DVD presentation - possibly one of the worst I've seen for a Hollywood blockbuster. Don't buy the two-disc edition - it's really not worth the extra money.

7

Darren Rea