Legend in the Making
“I am Legend” makes one of the biggest weekend splashes after its initial release on Dec. 14.
The original book was written in the 1950s by another legend of his time, Richard Matheson. Ahead of its time. A book about ideas. Revisiting old myths about vampires. About a last, desperate hope for mankind.
A book that suggested that mankind ended not with a bang, but a whimper.
There’s certain sadness about the “I am Legend” book that clings to you long after you read it.
It would make a difficult transition to film without losing much of its quality. But the film starring Will Smith as the lone survivor manages to take it into the spotlight. For a while.
Basically the film revolves around a man not affected by the raging plague that turns everyone in the world into a vampire. Not much of a future for the human race.
It takes some ideas of the original source with some success and brings a portrayal of the apocalyptic world to the big screen. The sense of isolation is there. The streets are filled with empty cars. Broken dreams in wastes. The buildings look nothing more than glassy tombs standing like un-living towers in the skies. There are a few familiar sights set in New York City.
Directed by Francis Lawrence, he does a nice job of transferring from the present day to flashbacks where the audience sees the lone man’s family, how they were separated by the disaster. We can see how he has reached the point of his daily routine of life. What makes him the person he is through the series of flashbacks. That worked well.
Smith’s real life daughter, Willow, plays his child in the film. Those flashbacks of quarantine and the decimated human race does come back to haunt.
Some of the elements of the book are here. Will Smith plays Robert Neville. His boredom sets him out to hunt for deer in a very good opening scene of his driving like blazes through the urban environments. Who cares? There’re no cops around to stop him. He sets up mannequins in video shops in order to recreate living people. As if he was trying to establish some semblance of his old life.
There are some nice scenes. The first appearance of the night creatures remains one of the best in the film. With them standing crowded in some kind of bizarre cult. They’re huddled together in a far dark corner. Their backs turned to Smith as he accidentally comes across them when looking for his dog.
The vampires move fast. Which makes them a little more frightening. Their shrieks, baying is flesh crawling. But when they are seen in the spots of daylight, they’re not as searing in the computer generated mode. But they work better in the night scenes.
However, the film doesn’t touch enough on the idea of the vampires creating their own society. You see blinding flashes of it. But not enough. They have pet dogs of their own, however corrupted. They seem to form their own society in the deeper end of darkness. But beyond that, it’s a missed opportunity. The book hints at the idea of vampires taking on a new evolution. Therefore they are creating a society to replace the old of human race.
There should have been further scenes of Smith’s character slowly losing it in a world filled with false hopes.
The ending is vastly different from the original book. It’s been changed to suit the heroic characteristics of the main character. I’m sure that most actors don’t care to play someone who is seen as a monster or a failure. (Hence Sean Connery playing a hero in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen rather than a bummed out, old fraud). Here, Smith’s actions takes on a messiah turn as he sacrifices his life to save the other two survivors from Maryland. And he ends up saving the human race by finding a cure that’s been passed on. The original book isn’t like that at all. Matheson took the notion of the title “I am Legend” through the fact that Neville is a monster killing vampires and a threat to the surviving new world of the living.
But the film may have been modified to suit Will Smith’s need to play a born-again hero in its ending. The final twenty minutes may put off many viewers who read the book. Doing away the monstrous persona in favor of a more heroic fine-tuning of the story. The film’s ending establishes him as a legend who enabled the human race to survive. Some viewers may not buy the ending. I didn’t.
The film does have good things to offer. There’s a sense of loneliness stretched throughout the film. The troubled, marred life of a lone survivor might be something too difficult for anyone to bear. There’s the need for human contact to survive. The appearance of empty buildings in a soulless city is beautiful. With the broken bridges further representing how cut off the lone survivor is. Silence can be an awful thing.
I liked the movie. But wished they did not change the ending so much as to hamper the original message of the book. But to a newcomer of the film, it plays out well in its sordid affair of big city isolation. Something we can all feel from time to time.
The original book was written in the 1950s by another legend of his time, Richard Matheson. Ahead of its time. A book about ideas. Revisiting old myths about vampires. About a last, desperate hope for mankind.
A book that suggested that mankind ended not with a bang, but a whimper.
There’s certain sadness about the “I am Legend” book that clings to you long after you read it.
It would make a difficult transition to film without losing much of its quality. But the film starring Will Smith as the lone survivor manages to take it into the spotlight. For a while.
Basically the film revolves around a man not affected by the raging plague that turns everyone in the world into a vampire. Not much of a future for the human race.
It takes some ideas of the original source with some success and brings a portrayal of the apocalyptic world to the big screen. The sense of isolation is there. The streets are filled with empty cars. Broken dreams in wastes. The buildings look nothing more than glassy tombs standing like un-living towers in the skies. There are a few familiar sights set in New York City.
Directed by Francis Lawrence, he does a nice job of transferring from the present day to flashbacks where the audience sees the lone man’s family, how they were separated by the disaster. We can see how he has reached the point of his daily routine of life. What makes him the person he is through the series of flashbacks. That worked well.
Smith’s real life daughter, Willow, plays his child in the film. Those flashbacks of quarantine and the decimated human race does come back to haunt.
Some of the elements of the book are here. Will Smith plays Robert Neville. His boredom sets him out to hunt for deer in a very good opening scene of his driving like blazes through the urban environments. Who cares? There’re no cops around to stop him. He sets up mannequins in video shops in order to recreate living people. As if he was trying to establish some semblance of his old life.
There are some nice scenes. The first appearance of the night creatures remains one of the best in the film. With them standing crowded in some kind of bizarre cult. They’re huddled together in a far dark corner. Their backs turned to Smith as he accidentally comes across them when looking for his dog.
The vampires move fast. Which makes them a little more frightening. Their shrieks, baying is flesh crawling. But when they are seen in the spots of daylight, they’re not as searing in the computer generated mode. But they work better in the night scenes.
However, the film doesn’t touch enough on the idea of the vampires creating their own society. You see blinding flashes of it. But not enough. They have pet dogs of their own, however corrupted. They seem to form their own society in the deeper end of darkness. But beyond that, it’s a missed opportunity. The book hints at the idea of vampires taking on a new evolution. Therefore they are creating a society to replace the old of human race.
There should have been further scenes of Smith’s character slowly losing it in a world filled with false hopes.
The ending is vastly different from the original book. It’s been changed to suit the heroic characteristics of the main character. I’m sure that most actors don’t care to play someone who is seen as a monster or a failure. (Hence Sean Connery playing a hero in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen rather than a bummed out, old fraud). Here, Smith’s actions takes on a messiah turn as he sacrifices his life to save the other two survivors from Maryland. And he ends up saving the human race by finding a cure that’s been passed on. The original book isn’t like that at all. Matheson took the notion of the title “I am Legend” through the fact that Neville is a monster killing vampires and a threat to the surviving new world of the living.
But the film may have been modified to suit Will Smith’s need to play a born-again hero in its ending. The final twenty minutes may put off many viewers who read the book. Doing away the monstrous persona in favor of a more heroic fine-tuning of the story. The film’s ending establishes him as a legend who enabled the human race to survive. Some viewers may not buy the ending. I didn’t.
The film does have good things to offer. There’s a sense of loneliness stretched throughout the film. The troubled, marred life of a lone survivor might be something too difficult for anyone to bear. There’s the need for human contact to survive. The appearance of empty buildings in a soulless city is beautiful. With the broken bridges further representing how cut off the lone survivor is. Silence can be an awful thing.
I liked the movie. But wished they did not change the ending so much as to hamper the original message of the book. But to a newcomer of the film, it plays out well in its sordid affair of big city isolation. Something we can all feel from time to time.
posted by K.M. Paters at 12:34 PM
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