I Am Legend (2007)

I Am Legend is a highly modernized rendition of the 1954 novel penned by Richard Matheson. To achieve this modernization, it strikes a devil's deal, shedding details of its source in order to mesh with audience demand.

Robert, portrayed by Will Smith, leads a fascinating, if grim, life in fallen New York City; the metropolitan area has been untamed, become overgrown, and wildlife has reclaimed the landscape. The sun reigns supreme, providing safety from the infected; the only hours worth marking are those of the sunrise and the sunset. His survivalist-meets-scientist itinerary has him hunting game, trapping infected, and running trials in attempts to recreate his immunity. In the novel, Robert must work hard to attain such competence, and faces significant resistance. In the film, Robert is heavily recharacterized to suit him to his appointed tasks.

Another large departure, the infected are substantially reconceptualized from the novel's vampires. They function well in creating tension, but suffer visually from an overreliance on CGI. Given their design, it is unfortunate digital effects were used as a crutch when centralizing practical effects may have produced a better result. It is also unfortunate that they lost out on novel-based characteristics such as speech, deception, and even forming a culture.

The film retroactively provides context for how Robert ended up in this situation. This remains entirely original to the movie. Robert is established as a member of the military, a dutiful husband and father, and a determined scientist. If this didn't make him likeable enough, he also has a dog who he loves dearly.

The ending of the film is serviceable but pales in comparison to the ending of the novel which sees Robert captured, the only remaining human, having been elevated to mythological status among the creatures and thus declaring "I am legend" in the face of doom.

In terms of adaptation, something rather peculiar happened with I Am Legend.

The original novel's pathogenic vampires became a source of inspiration for early zombie films, especially those of George A. Romero. The conception put forth by these films was enduring and redefined the word zombie (twice, in fact). Many years later, I Am Legend, the film, returns to ground zero and sees the original vampiric and intelligent creatures Matheson conceived of turned into more traditional, zombie-like monsters.

Inspiration, a dirt road often marked "one-way", somehow bore multi-lane traffic: the source inspired something new and then a later adaptation took on the characteristics of the ideas that the source inspired rather than the source itself.

While this was a successful approach at bringing in a new audience, the story sees certain elements watered down or radically transformed. Nonetheless, the film succeeds in telling its version of the story on its own terms.

An entertaining mashup of source, inspiration, then source again, I Am Legend will likely satisfy genre fans and general audiences. Those insisting on intensive textual fidelity need not apply.