Another book-movie adaptation is set to release itself upon the masses. About 90% of which probably have not read the original book. Who reads nowadays anyways, right? Use our imaginations? HA!







Trailer*


Plot: A cure for cancer is found! But then it all goes terribly wrong. Infection/disease is uncontrollable and one man, one sole survivor who is immune, is left alive. He must find a cure or die trying. But is he truly alone in New York City or are there others out there like him? This is the Legend...


My Review: Or rather it was suppose to be. That trailer is incredibly misleading. It makes the film seem like it will be based off the book which couldn't be further than the truth. There are some basic ideas found in the book that got brought to the big screen but they appear to be coming in from a different angle. This is probably due to the fact that the movie has been in production since 1994 and the author of the book, well I think a quote from -D- sums it up best,

The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price should've been the definitive film adaptation of I Am Legend, but the studio and director wanted to change so many things that Richard Matheson, who wrote the novel and screenplay, quit and said "fuck you guys."

The emotions and expresison here seem to be the in sync with this adaptation. And speaking of endings, this movie got a new ending about two months ago. Apparently it didn't test well and so they did last minute reshoots. Also remember 12 Monkeys? That tested horribly but yielded box office success. Here is a tip Hollywood, books do good cause their detail and their endings. So when you try to make them into a movie, it is not beneficial to eliminate one of the key parts of what make it so AMAZING.

One thing that kind of has me torn is the disease itself. In the book it is put under a microsope, it is explained, studied, and demystified. They made it actually believable that "vampires" could really exist. On the contrary, the movie left it purely science fictional. Is it better to be amazed by the thought of real vampires or to think of them as purely supernatural and leave a since of wonder stirring inside the minds of imaginative and curious? In the same vein (pun intended), is it more logical to believe that some people's genes just make them immune or that a bite from a vampyric bat in another country that introduces a small amount of the disease in order to build up antibodies? Which is the better fit and the better story? You decide...

But enough about the ending and story! I will admit that besides it being about 5% from the book, and some unexplained details the movie could be looked upon as enjoyable and nothing but entertainment. What else do you expect from Hollywood, a good story with depth and underlying messages? haha! That's a good one! Yes, there is some action and of course laughs when dealing with his psychosis which I felt was done a lot better than I thought it would have. Action and laughs, it is what the general public wants to see, right?

Lastly there is something that seems off. According to IMDB, there is an incredibly long list of cast, 35 to be exact, for the "infected" individuals. Except in the movie they all looked the same besides a gender difference here and there. Couldn't they cut that list in half and just did some copy and paste to fill in the gaps in the one or two scenes that had more than a handful of creatures? I mean they were 100% CGI, so I don't see what the problem would be here.

Another thing about the creatures or whatever they are calling them, they looked cartoony? There is only one way to really describe what they look like. Look at this image:



The infected reminded me of characters from Timesplitters. Cartoony and super smoothed over circles not real defining characteristics besides muscles and veins? From the trailer it made me think they were actual creatures but when you actually get to see them ... it can be upsetting to say the least. They look like cartoony humans with no hair who act like animals. In other words, they aren't vampires.

To tell you the truth, I don't think they ever mentioned the term vampire. So Hollywood takes a movie about vampires with a good ending and gets rid of both of them? Way to go!

I think this is probably the appropriate time to get off my rant horse and let someone else ride off into the sun. But one final word...

This film, it is definitely not the book, It Is Movie.


Conclusion: I really need to stop reading books before the movies come out.


MY Rating: 6 - Go read the book, it is only like 160 pages. But seriously, if you didn't read the book you will probably enjoy it and think it is entertaining and/or good but I make NO promises on the ending.

**


*Some parts of trailer may not be in said film due to editing out of vampires and new ending tacked on two months ago.

**I probably should give it two stars but that is just cause they mucked it up from the book.