Latest News

13 / 05 / 2012
Fantasy F1: The results from the fifth F1 race at Barcelona are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Monaco in two weeks on 27th May - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 25th.

30 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Results from Rally Argentina are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Greece and starts on 25th May. Cutoff for edits is midnight GMT on Thursday 24th May.

23 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Jari-Matti Latvala has been injured, so he is being replaced by Dani Sordo for Rally Argentina. If you have Latvala on your team, you'll automatically score for Sordo instead. Cutoff for edits for this weekend's rally is midnight GMT on Thursday 26th April.

22 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy F1: The results from the fourth F1 race at Bahrain are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Barcelona in three weeks on 13th May - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 11th.

15 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy F1: Now we have a few races under our belt, the weightings have been changed to reflect the early season performances - see the the league page to see what changed.

15 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy F1: The results from the third F1 race at China are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is (probably) Bahrain next weekend on 22nd April - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 20th.

02 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: The results have been updated to reflect Mikko Hirvonen's exclusion from Rally Portugal.

01 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Results from Rally Portugal are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Argentina and starts on 27th April. Cutoff for edits is midnight GMT on Thursday 26th April.

28 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Last call to pick a WRC Academy driver! Teams will be locked from midnight GMT on Thursday night - if you haven't picked one by then, you'll get Christopher Duplessis by default.

25 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1: The results from the second F1 race at Malaysia are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is China in 3 weeks on 15th April - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 13th.

18 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1: The results from the first F1 race at Australia are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Malaysia this coming weekend - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT Friday.

15 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1: LAST DAY! Teams entered after midnight GMT tonight won't count for Melbourne - this is your last chance!

13 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Results from Rally Mexico are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Portugal and starts on 29th March. Remember to pick your Academy driver before then! Anyone who doesn't pick an Academy driver will by default get the first guy on the list - Christopher Duplessis.

05 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1: It's here! The 2012 Fantasy F1 championship is open for entries! Read the rules or dive straight in and Pick your team. You can change your mind as often as you like until midnight GMT on Thursday 15th March when teams will be frozen for the first race.

23 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: The Mexico entry list has arrived and is available on the rally page.

14 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Due to Mini's recent hoo-ha, if you have Mini as your WRC team, you will score for the Mini Portugal team instead (currently Araujo/Nobre) from Mexico onwards.

13 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Teams are open for editing again, though the entry list for Mexico isn't yet available.

12 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Results from Rally Sweden are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Mexico and starts on 8th March. Teams will reopen for editing on Monday.

23 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Teams are now open for editing again. Ogier and Mikkelsen are entered into Sweden in S2000 cars, but they're not eligible for the SWRC championship. You can choose them as WRC drivers for Sweden if you want.

22 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Results from the Monte are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The second rally is in Sweden and starts on 9th Feb. Teams will be frozen at midnight GMT on the night of Thursday 9th Feb.

18 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Rally teams are now frozen for the Monte. You can still pick a team and it will start scoring from Sweden on 9th Feb.

11 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: The 2012 Fantasy Rally season is now open for entries! Read the rules or dive straight in and pick a team. You can change your team as often as you like so you may as well create one now in case you forget later. Cutoff for the first race in Monte Carlo is midnight GMT on the night of TUESDAY 17th January.

27 / 11 / 2011
Fantasy F1: The results from the final F1 race at Brazil are in and the championship has been decided! Check the results or see how your team did. First race of 2012 is Australia on 18th March. Entries for the new season will open a week or two before that date.

14 / 11 / 2011
Fantasy Rally: Shock rally drama! Martin Semerad was excluded from the PWRC, so our results change too, which gives us a new champion! Check the results or see how your team did.

13 / 11 / 2011
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally GB are in and the season is over! Check the results or see how your team did. The 2012 season will be open for entries in early 2012 in time for Monte Carlo on 17th January.

I Am Legend

Cast: Will Smith, Alice Braga. Directed by Francis Lawrence. Story: Survival in a post-apocalyptic New York. Running Time: 1hr 41 minutes. UK Certificate 15.

Every now and then a movie comes along that stands out from the crowd, that seems significant in a way you can't quite put your finger on. I Am Legend is such a movie, and it's well worth seeing.

No longer is the mosquito responsible for the most human deaths in history, as Emma Thompson has just stolen that particular crown by wiping out pretty much everyone with her cancer cure. Oops. Will Smith's immunity leaves him the only survivor in a spookily empty Manhattan, populated by day by Will and his dog - and herds of deer, bizarrely - and by night by the vampire-like remains of the infected population intent on noshing on a Will burger. What follows is a curiously unique blend of 28 Days Later and Cast Away that will have you gripped from easy-going beginning to rather unsatisfying end. Cleverly, the movie carefully addresses all the concerns you'll have about how he survives in the post-civilisation urban environment, which buys much needed credibility for the second half when things start to get goofy.

It was something of a surprise to find that I Am Legend was directed by Francis Lawrence, whose only other feature credit is the dismal Constantine. He must have been taking lessons, because you would normally credit the director when a movie manages to surpass the sum of its parts. Normally I wouldn't dream of giving 5/5 to a movie with a limp conclusion, or that had iffy computer graphics - one particular scene with an empty New York street in the background looked so much like a painting that I was half-expecting it to drive away, leaving a view of the camera crew - however the character and sheer strength of the movie is enough to compensate for these drawbacks, not to mention another excellent performance from Will Smith, who is becoming one of his generation's finest stars. This isn't going to net him the Oscar he should have got last year for The Pursuit of Happyness, but it's surely coming. Vastly less impressive is Alice Braga, the only other significant player, purely because her Hispanic accent is so strong that I only understood about half of her dialogue. No speako mumblo, senorita.

You have to go and see I Am Legend, it's one of the movies that has defined the cinematic year, along with Transformers and ... well, that's it really. Far from flawless, it nevertheless manages to captivate and entertain, which is all we really want.

I enjoyed this film: 5/5

I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: 4/5

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 2/5 - some very intense moments, the 15 certificate is appropriate.

To enjoy this film you should be: a fan of movies.

Your comments

The comments printed here are not necessarily the views of Forwardcharm!

The problem with this movie is "The Omega Man". An early '70s movie based on the book starring Charlton Heston at his peak. It's clear that the Director and/or screenwriter of I Am Legend drew upon The Omega Man and any "fan of movies" worth their salt will have seen the original and made that link. Paradoxically therefore I'd argue that fans of movies will not enjoy I am Legend as much as those who take it at face value having not seen Heston's fine performance in "the original".

One final point - the book is far superior to either film, although "Omega" does at least attempt to flesh out the (important) relationship between Neville and Cortman, his neighbour in the good old days. Furthermore, the thread running through the book and the emergence of the fact that Neville himself becomes "the mutant" is completely missed in Lawrence's version.


mark piper