7. The Video Store (I Am Legend)
The great first hour of I Am Legend makes the second hour all the more disappointing. As the only man left in New York, Will Smith's Robert Neville (and his dog Sam, of course) are the only characters on-screen, and Smith carries the first act with his usual charisma and screen presence. It seems as though the character is pretty normal for somebody that hasn't had any human contact for three years. Or is he? On a trip to the video store, we start to get the feeling that he might have gone a little crazy. Fair play in using the video store to keep up some kind of normality, but the whole scene is more than a little unsettling. Bantering with dead-eyed mannikins with names like Marge, Fred and Hank, it appears Robert is descending into madness, especially considering he's thinking of asking one of them on a date. A second trip to the store later in the movie is almost heartbreaking, but the initial visit shows us the severe isolation of the character. If only the rest of the movie was as good. After a tension-building first act that establishes the loneliness and danger in the world, it soon descends into a generic Hollywood action movie featuring some terribly-animated CGI vamp... I'm sorry, 'Darkseekers'. Pale, disheveled and humanoid, could the production not just find some skinny people? For me, the poor effects took me right out of the story which was disappointing, especially after such a promising start.