I Am Legend: Filmed Versions (1964-2007)

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Dirs: Sidney Salkow / Ubaldo Ragona

The first filmed adaptation of Richard Matheson's celebrated I Am Legend (1954) novel is more faithful to the book in comparison to what followed. It even has the pit.

Vincent plays the titular man. He walks as if the weight of what's left of the world is on his shoulders, a visible sign that he's a man for whom routine has become a kind of prison.

There's a lengthy flashback to a happier time that could've and should've been emotionally powerful, but some painfully bad dubbing issues leave the scenes feeling cheap and insincere.

Had they been rectified it would've been a better film, because the sense of isolation the story requires is captured well-enough.

The Omega Man (1971)

Dir. Boris Sagal

The opening sets the tone perfectly: Heston cruising empty streets; timed long shots capturing and silently translating into imagery the way he feels; showing him as a small, solitary cog in a great, abandoned machine.

The way it drip-feeds information to the viewer is complemented by the benefits and harrowing realities of being the last man.

Rosalind Cash adds a beneficial 70s Harlem-culture sass to the overpowering, white, militaristic attitude that Heston exudes.

The enemy is more dangerous because it can rationalise its own situation, forcing us to ask the question: when the diseased outnumber the healthy, who is counted as outcast?

I Am Ωmega (2007)

Dir. Griff Furst

A direct to DVD adaptation by the studio that shat out such mockbusters as Snakes on a Train (2006), The Day the Earth Stopped (2008) and Transmorphers: Fall of Man (2009).

Even though it's pure crap it does manage to give Neville (here called Renchard) some worthwhile characteristics: his cautious paranoia is appropriate (if it wasn't so sporadic) and his memory of a past tragedy fuels his anger, an anger that helps keep him alive. He also knows martial arts, owns a good laptop and a machete. What more could one man want?

The emptiness of the world is part of the story, but the emptiness of the film is simply a failing. Also, driving through infected parts of town in an open top car is a dick move.

I Am Legend (2007)

Dir. Francis Lawrence

The one thing that Hollywood's third attempt finally got right was to use some of their millions of dollars to show a world reclaimed by nature; the overgrown foliage and wild animals prowling the streets add authenticity.

The first half of the film is good, or not as shit as I remembered it being, but once the infected CGI Resident Evil rejects make an appearance it begins a slow and steady decline into tedium.

By the end it's as enticing as a black pudding omelette and as bleak as a British winter.

Speaking of which, they shot two very different endings and used the weaker one. If you get the chance, it's worth checking out the superior one directly after to undo a little of the damage.