I Am Legend

Variety

Remarkably eerie yet annoyingly larded with cheap horror-film shock effects, I Am Legend stands as an effective but also irksome adaptation of Richard Matheson???s classic 1954 sci-fi novel.

The Guardian

There is something a bit thin about the story, and just as in 28 Days Later, I find that digital, rage-filled zombies halve in dramatic interest with every second that passes.

Stuff

An edge-of-your-seat, gripping sci-fi zombithon that despite a dodgy ending is well worth the ticket price.

San Francisco Chronicle

The mutants' arrival onscreen ought to be the big payoff, but they are curiously unsatisfying, mostly CGI images that look like they came from the standard movie and video game monster factory - basic uglies that howl incessantly and move with ungodly speed and agility.

Premiere Magazine

Overall, I Am Legend is a wasted opportunity -- a rickety, weather-beaten framework around an otherwise strong central performance from Smith.

New Zealand Herald

When it's only Smith, his dog and a desolated New York, I Am Legend is spookily effective. Making the sleepless Times Square look like Aotea Square is quite an achievement. And the opening parts of the film, flashing back to the epidemic and ensuing panic which has left Smith's military scientist Robert Neville the only living boy in New York, all inspire hope of something good to come.

But soon there are signs I Am Legend's sense of post-apocalyptic atmosphere is really all it has going for it. Then again so did MTV-graduate director Lawrence's last film, Constantine...

BBC

Some cartoonish CGI and a mangled screenplay that misses the novel's point are downsides but the apocalyptic vision brings definite chills.