Book Vs. Movie

I saw this several weeks ago but have yet to come up with much to say about it that Happy Simpleton hasn’t already covered. Really, I try not to be a “the book is so much better than the movie!” sort of person (although it did take me several viewings before I really made peace with Peter Jackson’s LotR movies). But if you’re going to (presumably) pay Richard Matheson for the right to do a movie based on his kinda-famous novel, isn’t it a bit weird to then make a movie that is almost nothing like the book?

OK, the basic setup—the last man alive on earth faces off against scary zombie-esque creatures—is similar to the book. And for a while, the movie hints that it will stick to the spirit, if not the letter, of the novel. But I don’t exaggerate when I say that the movie’s final 30 minutes is the complete opposite, morally and thematically, of the book’s finale. The novel features a major plot shift towards the end that explains the title and makes an otherwise average survival-horror story really memorable. The movie just… never goes there at all. And it thus remains a thoroughly average survival-horror movie.

This movie could easily have been done with bothering to call it I Am Legend. In fact, as it is, it’s pretty much just a PG-13 version of 28 Days Later. It’s not an awful movie; in fact the first hour is pretty good viewing. But for some reason, they decided to remove the really good stuff and replace them with characters and an ending that are, I promise you, significantly less interesting than they are in the book.

Oh well. Maybe I’m just a “the book is better!” snob after all. But if they’re not going to at least pay lip service to the original work, what was the point of making this movie at all?

The other day I read an article on I Am Legend and it described it as a remake of The Omega Man but made no mention of the original book. The article irked me, but after watching the movie I’m unirked, and find the disconnect appropriate, given the disconnect that is the new movie.

If they referred to the movie as “OTHER TITLE : A wicked loose ‘adaptation’ of the original, very sweet novel, ‘I Am Legend’”, I would be able to appreciate the movie for what it is … a Hollywood fun time money-maker. By using the original title, however, they set me up to expect some level of respect for the book. Not so much. In fact, the whole point of his being “Legend” in the book was completely absent.

So how is the move actually like the book?

1. It shares the name
2. The main dude is named Robert Neville
3. There is a lady and a dog, for what they are worth

How are they different?

1. Everything else

If you do not have high expectations you will likely enjoy this movie. It is a fun watch once you get past the ridiculous “lions eating huge herds of deer in NYC opening scene”. After you finish watching it, do yourself a favor and read the book if you have not already.

And now I will move on to The Omega Man and
The Last Man on Earth and see what they have to offer.

P.S. I enjoyed the trailer comments over at Digg.