DAVESWORLD

 

I am legend

 

 

 

In a man made dystopian society that causes mankind to almost wipe itself out: We follow the life of one man and his dog in New York.

The background story:  Scientist in the future reverse engineer the measles virus and come up with a cure for cancer; or so they thought.

three years later; we watch DR Robert Neville (Smith) as he tries to find a cure for this disease.  The side effect of the so called cure, is to turn the victim into some kind of super zombie that has lost all remnants of humanity and turns it into some kind of animal.

I watched as he (Smith) has to kill his dog who became infected with the virus and despair fills me like a balloon ready to burst; I understand the situation and empathise with what he had to do but I still didn't like it.

This film is seriously depressing.  It shows us that as much as we try to make things better; we only seemed to make it worst.

 I always tried to imagine the low self esteem that the writers of that time must have had.  There seemed to be a glut of books that were released that saw a future where mankind either nukes itself back to the stone age or wipes itself out by playing god.  Maybe they took too many drugs and it finally affected their brains.

Like most films that deal with the future, this films seems to have an underlying theme.  Don't mess with nature.  Perhaps it is trying to tell us that we are all going to die and there is nothing we can do about it.  Either way it isn't the type of movie I personally would release near to Christmas.  It is WAY to negative for it own good.  Will Smith is brilliant and believe me when I say this.  I do not like any of the rolls that Will Smith has ever played up to this point.

The only problem I have with this movie, is that it seems to be nothing more than scare tactics.  Scientist find a new way to help mankind and a movie comes along and implies what could happen.  Stop it right now; It's not big and it's not clever.

The trouble with well meaning movies like this, is that some of the viewers will believe this crap and will try and stop the advancement of medicine.  Maybe I'm getting too sensible but watch this movie only when you're in a very, very, very good mood.

29th of December 2007

I have read the book now and thought you might want to compare the two.

 

The major differences are as follows:
 
1: In the movie the main character has a dog from the beginning of the movie.
 
2:You find out what causes the virus that turns most of the population into vampires.
 
3: They don't actually mention the fact that the people turn into vampires
 
4: He does meet a women but she has a son and no there is no mention of a vampire society.  It is inferred in the movie though.
 
5: the main character dies in a more heroic way.
 
After reading the book, I found the movie to be a valiant effort.  It gets the mood right.  You start to understand what it must feel like to be all alone for three years.  In the movie; his dog gets infected and he is left with no choice but to kill it.  It is done off camera and I found it to be done in good taste.
 
After killing his dog, his only friend; he goes out at night and starts to kill the vampire things with his car, showing no concern for his own life.  Now that his dog is dead he seems to have no purpose to live.
 
As I mentioned earlier; the movie is a valiant attempt to put a very emotionally deep book into a film and gets the main points that the book was trying to make.  If you watch this movie, just remember that the book would be too hard to turn into a one and a half hour film.
 
I think the movie and more so the book, is trying to make us realise how fortunate we are if we have someone to share our lives with.  Imagine how we would feel if there was no one to talk to, no one to laugh with and no one to cry with.  I think the whole point of both the book and movie is; be happy with what you have because it could all be gone and don't mess with nature.