I Am Legend
December 28th, 2007 by PotatoWe saw I Am Legend tonight, and we’re not thrilled. First Markham Place has really comfy chairs (much better than the blue chairs of the formerly Famous Players theatres, especially for short people like Wayfare), but the non-stadium seating meant it was kind of annoying when a tall guy sat in front of us. We also had a very chatty couple behind us, and the film quality was really awful: there were a half-dozen black vertical lines through the whole thing. I don’t know how the film got that scratched up, that systematically (every reel?!), but I would have left and complained if it weren’t for the fact that so much of the movie was dark, so it was harder to see that.
The movie is only very loosely based on the book. In fact, they have the same concept, and the main character has the same name, but not the same plots at all. No more battling with depression and creeping alcoholism, now Neville simply tries to hold on to his sanity as he faces being the last man on earth. No longer a hapless joe schmo victim trying to piece things together, he’s now a top-notch army scientist who knew about the virus since the beginning. And the big part of the end of the novella? Gone entirely, though oddly enough there were a number of weird touches (what we thought were elements of foreshadowing) through the movie that made us think they were following the original plot, only to see them go wildly off into a completely different direction entirely.
While the camera work got quite dizzying at points, the movie is pretty decent and worth a watch. If you’ve read the novella and were expecting to see a film adaptation of it, however, don’t bother: this is a completely different story they’re telling.
December 28th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
I saw this last night. I thought it was “Meh”. But it wasn’t my choice, and I haven’t really liked Will Smith since he punched out that alien in Independence Day. And you’re right about the camera work, parts of it were worse than Blair Witch Project.