CUT TO THE CHASE: Unless you’re a fan of Manhattan scenery, wait to rent I Am Legend and make it a double-feature with The Omega Man.

I Am Legend is a moderately enjoyable movie about a man trying to find a cure for a virus that has killed 90% of the Earth’s population and turned most of the remainder into blood-thirsty, vampiric bogey-men. Will Smith can carry a movie–especially a science fiction film (Men In Black II notwithstanding)–and he does not disappoint here. However, there are two fundamental problems with I Am Legend. First, the director portrays the infected survivors as superhuman monsters. The movie would have been far more effective if he had simply made them more human, ala the zombies in 28 Days Later. Instead, they are other-worldly CGI creations who I did not believe for a moment were metamorphised humans. Indeed, one must wonder why anyone would try to find a cure for the creatures as they are portrayed. I would think one would simply focus on killing the beasts. I would have believed that Smith was desperate to find a cure out a sense of guilt for creating the virus, but the director wimped out on that too, choosing instead to blame a character briefly introduced at the beginning of the movie. The second major problem with the movie is the ending. In this type of feature, you need to either have it end badly or end happily. If you try to do both, as they attempt in this movie, it turns into a muddled mess. The Omega Man is similarly flawed. If you are prepared to accept not-fully-satisfying endings for both pictures (The Omega Man is slightly more successful in pulling it off), both movies are worth seeing. I would wait, however, to rent both on DVD. There really is no reason to see I Am Legend in the theater unless you have a thing (like me) for Manhattan scenery or want to kill a few hours on a cold winter afternoon.