I am Legend

[coccatino]

so... for anyone else who read the book please know that the movie pretty much has in common ummm... the name of the main character. And some sort of creatures in the night. That's kind of it. Just an FYI.
The movie was good but I would have enjoyed it a lot more had I not been SO stunned by how much they completely changed the plot.

[TheOogieBoogieMan]

Why is it that nearly every movie that involves zombies (or in this case, zombiesque-things) ends the same way? It's a shame, considering that the rest of the movie was better than I thought it would be.

I also liked how "Redemption Song" played over the end credits. Nice touch.

[CrypticMyth]

Damn. I haven't caught this one yet, but I'm a huge fan of the book, and reading your post (not to mention, other reviews), I'm very, very skeptical.
But the movie fan in me will make me watch this for sure.

[coccatino]

CrypticMyth- I Love the book, too. Don't get me wrong, it was a good scary movie- lots of entertainment value. But it is absolutely NOTHING like the book. I was realllly annoyed while watching it. Every time something new happened I was letting out little noises of disgust at how drastically they had changed the plot of the book. If you go in knowing that, you can probably enjoy the movie for what it is. I just wish I had known ahead of time so I wouldn't have been so dissapointed.

[CrypticMyth]

^^Thanks. I'll bear that in mind. Going first show tomorrow...

[Storm_Rider]

Warning people: SPOILERS ON THE BOOK AND MOVIE(S)

I'm also a big fan of the book and thanks to you coccatino I went in it with the right state of mind. I knew they would change stuff, i was expecting that, because let's face it the book was written in 1954 and the story took place between '76 and '78, in the past 50 years since the book's conception medical science and knowledge has changed drastically a few times.

The premise is an interesting one, although not a completely explained one. Why did the engineered virus mutate? What exactly did it do to it's hosts?

Anyway, I know for a fact that today, as we speak, there are scientists around the world who are working on a cancer treatment just like the one portrayed here, but I believe in the real world it takes years until a drug or treatment gets the green light, after extensive testing and waiting to observe any side effects so if this were to happen, which will probably happen in the next 10-20 years, I don't think this particular scenario will play out.

The movie starts out nice, and it carries its self on a steady pace, it uses flashbacks to give us the background story, just like Matheson does in the book, and it also portrays Neville's growing mental instability, while Matheson's Neville preferred to get drunk for days, this one arranged mannequins in the video store and talks to them as if they were real people.

The movie also does a good job of showing us the complete grind and routine of Neville's life, something that also was quite relevant in the book, although different.

The part with the radio broadcast was a nice touch, although it was also a part of "The Last Man On Earth", but it seemed to be something that anyone in his situation would have done.

Another nice touch was when he hands Anna a CD and tell her it's probably the best album ever recorder, I think that album is Bob Marley's "Legend", which is indeed a great album.

Now we come to the only problem I have with the movie; the ending. Now, in the book the ending made sense, although I didn't like it that much, it made sense.

Here it makes no sense because of what I call "the God pill". The whole movie is religion-free till the end when the writers force feed us a God pill. Now although the book had some discussion about why the infected were turned away by religious items, Matheson did a great job in offering an explanation for that.

In the movie, after all of his work, pain and suffering, BAM! God pill, everything is going to be OK, because God has a plan, despite the fact that it was Man's doing and undoing of this scourge, God takes the glory because obviously butterflies are cool. If all of them were to die right after he had discovered a way to cure the disease, then it would have been a great ending, and I believe it would have been in the spirit of the book. Although in the book human society kinda survived, although morphed by it's new constraints.

Despite this, despite its ending, i believe it is a good movie, even just for the fact that there are deer and lions on the overgrown streets of New York.

Also, did any of you see the movie poster of what seemed to be a Batman vs. Superman movie? That was a great thing to behold.

[coccatino]

[glow=red,2,300]SPOILERS! [/glow]

Storm_Rider- I 100% agree with pretty much everything you posted. The movie was good and very well done, I just went in with the wrong image in my head because I had heard that it was going to be more faithful to the book than The Omega Man was. The end of the movie really bothered me, too. It wasn't so much the God pill thing as I just didn't think the ending was a realistic evolvement of the plot based on the rest of the film. Plus, as much as the movie strayed from the book, it was still kind of at least in the spirit of the book until that point. The good guy should lose because it's a lot more realistic, and a lot more scary.

Also- one of the things so scary about the book is how little you know about what really happened, how he was just this guy (not medically trained) who tried to figure things out on his own using books from the library. The unknown is way scarier than the known. I thought they could update it using references to the Gulf war instead of Panama, etc... but I would have liked for him to just be a simple guy. Think they tried to explain too much in the movie- it lost some of it's terror potential.

[aargmematey]

I thought it was a good movie when I first saw it, then when I saw it again I liked it less and plot holes were more evident.

However, when I thought about the book I wished that the makers of I Am Legend had stayed more true to that (I haven't read the book...but I did wikipedia...*cough*). I think it's a much neater concept. Also I hated the God stuff at the end, merely because it came out of left field and reminded me of Signs without the development.

[DarthShady]

I never read the book, so all I know is what my friend John told me. But I loved the movie up to the last 20 minutes or so, and even that bit wasn't so bad in my opinion, just really cliche.

I loved that Neville was a military scientist instead of some average Joe. It probably did take away from some suspense and made it harder to relate to him, but it was also way more plausible. There's no way a regular guy could've survived that for 3 years. Not with the "vampires" hunting for human flesh every single night. He would've died before he could get his hands on some library books. Any movie that can make me cry over a dog's life has to be pretty good. This goes right up there with Old Yeller. Also loved the mannequin bit and the traps. And I loved the reference to Bob Marley and his dream of ending hate. Pretty nice parallel.

One thing I thought was kind of funny: did the head "vampire" guy remind anyone else of Imhotep from The Mummy?

[DarthShady]

stormrider said:

Also, did any of you see the movie poster of what seemed to be a Batman vs. Superman movie? That was a great thing to behold.

I did! It made me happy inside. Is that a possible hint of things to come? Or just wishful thinking....

[TheLuckyOne]

darthshady said:

There's no way a regular guy could've survived that for 3 years. Not with the "vampires" hunting for human flesh every single night. He would've died before he could get his hands on some library books.

Coming late to the party, but I'll respectfully disagree with that part. I had no problem with Will Smith being a military scientist, but while I haven't read the book, I've read the (very faithful) comic adaptation, and his survival is presented in very plausible terms. He's not super athletic or good with weapons (he barely even used a gun, let alone an assault rifle), it's just that the vampires in the book were more like traditional vampires. He survived by coating all his windows in garlic and replacing the bulbs every few days, as well as by using religious artifacts and by staking vampires during the day. Surviving wasn't hard exactly, just tedious and time consuming (growing garlic, replacing windows, maintaining his generator, etc).

Actually, that's one of the quibbles I had with the movie- that the vampires didn't know where Neville was until the last 20 minutes of the movie. The greatest tension of the book (well, comic) came from the fact that they knew exactly where he was and would surround his house every night, taunting him and throwing things from a distance... the female vampires would get naked and do lewd things every time he looked out the window to try to entice him out. He couldn't get a moment's rest because he refused to be driven from his house, but couldn't drown them out with music or alcohol. Whereas in the movie, I couldn't figure out why Will Smith was huddled in his bathtub and so afraid if the vampires had no idea where he was.

Which actually leads me to one question I had: what was that liquid Will Smith was sprinkling in front of his building early in the movie? At first I assumed it was holy water, but when it became clear later that the vampires weren't repelled by holy objects and didn't know where he was, I realized that couldn't be it. Anybody know?

-D

[coccatino]

SPOILERS
Drew- yay for a faithful comic adaptation that I wasn't aware existed! It sounds very faithful to the book, actually, so I'll have to check it out- who put it out?

I agree with what Drew posted about Neville being a regular guy. In the book the vampires know exactly where he is and they don't have any really special powers.

Also- good question about the liquid, I didn’t think about it, either… I assumed holy water and forgot about it after that. In the book the vampires ARE repelled by holy objects, but not because the objects actually have any power- because of the beliefs of the vampires from before they were infected. Vampires who were Christian people are repelled by the Cross, but his old coworker who taunts him all of the time was Jewish, and just laughed right in Neville’s face when he showed him a cross- but when he showed him a Torah, he was repelled. Neville thinks the objects themselves hold no power but that the vampires know that they are somehow ‘unholy’ and therefore and repelled by the objects that they, personally, view as holy. There is no holy water in the book because in order for it to be in any way effective the vampires would have to see him do it and be Catholic.

And I missed the garlic in the movie- Neville was all about the garlic in the book- trying to figure out why it worked, extracting oils from it and injecting it into vampires to see if it would kill them, etc.

The dog issue bothered me, too. In the book he doesn’t have the dog- the dog finds him and he spends a ridiculous number of days getting it to trust him, because it his only contact with something alive besides the vampires. I really Love that part of the book because it makes it all the more tragic when the dog dies and Neville is so desperate to save it.

And they do away with the entire concept of the 'still living'... which was huge to the novel's plot.

I could keep listing differences but I wont... I just really Loved the book and was dissapointed by the changes made. Especially the end.

[LadyStarblade]

theluckyone said:

Which actually leads me to one question I had: what was that liquid Will Smith was sprinkling in front of his building early in the movie? At first I assumed it was holy water, but when it became clear later that the vampires weren't repelled by holy objects and didn't know where he was, I realized that couldn't be it. Anybody know?

They never say it outright, but I'm pretty sure it was bleach to cover his and Sam's scent. They make a big deal about how the scent of blood (and perhaps other bodily odors) attracts the things...that's how they find his house near the end; he asks Anna "was I still bleeding when you brought me home?"

And DarthShady--every time that alpha male roared, I thought "Imhotep!" Even the jaw motion was the same. Wonder if the same special effects house worked on it?

[DarthShady]

ladystarblade said:

They never say it outright, but I'm pretty sure it was bleach to cover his and Sam's scent. They make a big deal about how the scent of blood (and perhaps other bodily odors) attracts the things...that's how they find his house near the end; he asks Anna "was I still bleeding when you brought me home?"

Some of my friends & I had this discussion after the movie, and we all came to the conclusion that it was bleach. Holy water hadn't crossed my mind, but then I didn't read the book so I didn't even know that they were supposed to be "vampires" either.

[Storm_Rider]

I also think that the liquid was something that was supposed to mask their scent. However I don't know if it could have been holy water since every priest of every faith died, as far as Neville was concerned. And I believe you need some sort of priest in order to have holy water.

The alpha male did remind me of Imhotep as well.