I Am Legend

When Richard Matheson wrote the novel by the same name more than 50 years ago, the idea of the last man on Planet Earth fighting off zombies/vampires created by mutated virus/bacteria would have been genuinely new.

Unfortunately, that8217;s no longer the case. This year alone we have had 28 Weeks Later, 30 Days of Night, Resident Evil: Extinction, The Hills Have Eyes, and a few that I am definitely missing out, with remarkably similar bloodlust.

What does put I Am Legend apart is its depiction of the desolateness of an empty New York, beautifully conveyed by a herd of deer that goes racing down the roads, and the forced cheeriness of the sole man standing up to the virus ravaging it 8212; Robert Neville Smith.

There8217;s a resignation and finality to every step that Smith takes in the film, whether it is speeding out to collect the day8217;s samples for research or boarding up at home for the night. For, the zombies 8212; left that way because of infection by a virus 8212; venture out at night looking for prey.

Neville8217;s loneliness is apparent from the way Smith clings on to his dog, his only companion in the world for all he knows, and his conversation with mannequins at a local store. Neville does broadcast every morning on the radio, asking anyone else alive to come meet him, but 1,000 days after the virus struck, no one has responded as yet.

But Smith belongs to another film, for in director Lawrence8217;s hands, I Am Legend is just another shock horror, with get-you-out-of-your-seat surprises in every dark corner and zombies as vicious, pale and red-eyed as they get.

You can8217;t help wondering if Lawrence8217;s version isn8217;t also coloured by 9/11 as, standing on battered New York streets instead of Los Angeles, in the novel, Neville insists, 8220;Don8217;t blame God, it was man who created all this8221;, and of racial, class differences. Of a virus sweeping across the world and taking away everything that8217;s human.

The denouement happens on September 9, 8.45 pm. The first plane plunged into World Trade Center8217;s North Tower on September 11, 8.45 am. The film suggests God finally shows a way, 8220;lights up the darkness8221;.

Ironically, while the central premise of Richard Matheson8217;s book is no longer new, what might have done I Am Legend some good is if it had actually stuck to the rest of it. In the novel, which is much more complex, Neville realised that while he was immune to the virus, there was, towards the end, little to put him apart. That in his zealousness to destroy the 8220;others8221;, he had somewhere crossed a line.

No such endings, of course, for a Hollywood version. Go with few expectations, apart from some really genuine scares.