The movie I am Legend is roughly based off the 1954 book by Richard Matheson about the last human alive in Los Angles. While a couple of the themes from the book remain the movie and the book have very little else in common. The movie is set in a Post-apocalyptic New York where a virus that originally cured cancer has mutated and turned those who survived the disease into nocturnal zombie like creatures. WARNING the follow contains spoilers.
In New York U.S. Army scientist Lt. Colonel Robert Neville is the only non infected human left and as far as he knows he is the last normal human on the earth. The movie open with Neville going about his daily routine, hunting for deer, hitting the local video store, talking to the mannequins he has set up, and working on a way to transfer his immunity to the virus to others. His only companion being the family dog Sam, and we can tell from his interactions with the dog and the mannequins that Dr. Neville has lost his grip on reality.
Neville captures a infected female and takes her home to test his latest attempt at a cure, but the capture does not go unnoticed and a infected male attempts to brave the sunlight to get the girl back. A couple of days later while making his rounds Neville notices one of the mannequins has been moved and when he get near it he is snared with a trap similar to the one he used to capture the female with. By the time he escapes the trap it is nearly sunset. As he tries to get back to the car the brave male send a couple of infected dogs to attack him. Sam fights the other dogs off long enough to allow Neville to escape but become infected and later Neville is force to put her down. The next night in a fit of rage Neville attacks a group of infected by ramming them with his car and is nearly killed. Much to his surprise he is rescued but a young lady and boy who are also immune. They take Neville back to his hideout where the girl, Anna, explains that they and a few other survived the outbreak aboard a Red Cross evacuation ship and are making their way to a rumored survivors’ camp in Vermont. But the infected have tracked them back to the house. Neville sets off hidden explosives and it slows the infected down long enough for them to escape to the basement. Where Neville ends up sacraficeing himself so that Anna and the boy can escape with the cure. The movie ends with Anna and the boy arriving at the gates of the survivors’ camp in Vermont.
The two disc set contains the original “Controversial” ending. Which is the ending I was expecting after reading about the making of the film in Cinefex Magazine. The other ended is that Neville realizes that the infected are not the mindless zombies that he thought they were and the Alpha male has done all this to get the girl that Neville captured back. Neville releases the girl and after a little lovey moment between the two the rest of the infected leave in peace.
Now both endings differ from the book greatly but the original ending is the better of the two as the theater version basically takes all the plot development we had concerning the Alpha male and throws it out the window in favor of a feel good Hollywood ending. Over all tho I would say that this the best adaption of the book so far and it a hell of alot better then The Omega Man.
