I Am Legend...

So I watched director Francis Lawrence's adaptation of Robert Matheson's short story I Am Legend yesterday. It was an entertaining horror flick and good character portrayal of Robert Neville by Will Smith. But as with most movie adaptations of decent literary works, it failed at delivering as great an impact as the original story--I actually read Matheson before seeing the movie. You don't really get the sense of isolation, fear, hatred, depression, etc. that Robert Neville is experiencing. In fact, Lawrence deviated greatly from Matheson's version, making the movie more of a mimicry of 28 Days Later (it could have actually just been called 28 years later) and less about why Neville defines himself as a "legend." Without revealing too much about the original, Lawrence's version just doesn't carry as much impact as Matheson's. In the book, the virus mutated humans into actual vampires. Neville's life is consumed with means of hiding, destroying, and surviving--not only the vampires, but an rising inner turmoil as well. In the movie, the bad guys were simply crazy, fast-moving zombies (ehhh-hmmm...seen that one before???) with an aversion to sunlight who didn't manage to clue in on where Neville was residing until the very end. Kinda hokey...

Anyway, I would definitely recommend reading the book of short stories before seeing the movie. I Am Legend is a short read--less than two hundred pages--and I found the other stories within the book to be equally as entertaining, especially Prey.

Cheers!

Amanda