I Am Legend: ***½ (out of a possible **** stars)

Will Smith may very well be the coolest actor alive today, and possibly ever. He almost never makes a bad film, and I Am Legend is yet another notch on a belt already filled with countless triumphs (I still can’t figure out how someone could watch the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and think “This guy is the next great action star!”...but whoever it was was an absolute genius). The story and acting are superb, and there’s one scene that’s so sad I probably wouldn’t even have felt like a sissy if I had cried (but I didn’t, just for the record. My perfect streak is still intact!). My one complaint - and the only thing that cost this film a perfect ranking - is the pointlessly overused computer animation. There is no reason - NONE WHATSOEVER - why the creepy mutant/zombie/vampire things should have been animated. As the LOTR trilogy (and pretty much every vampire and zombie movie) have shown, REAL actors in costumes and makeup still look far superior. Computer animation has come far in the past two decades or so, but it still hasn’t reached the point where you can’t tell it’s not real.