3. I Am Legend
I Am Legend is three-quarters a great film, and if the filmmakers had stayed true to their course it would have gone the distance and become a truly brilliant one. Following the adventures of the last man left alive in New York City played by Will Smith after a zombie virus, it combined stunning visuals and a strongly-played main part to create something otherworldly and strange. Scenes of deer and lions running around the overgrown roads of the Big Apple made for powerful vignettes, and Robert Nevilles interactions with shop dummies added a tragic dimension. But when the final act rolled around, everything went to hell. Now, Im not saying that a film cant differ in plot from its source material, but the film of I Am Legend wrote itself into a hole by not being as bold as the book upon which it is based. While the book sees Dr Neville stumble across a seemingly uninfected woman who then turns out to be an intelligent member of the vampires hes been hunting, the Will Smith film (but curiously, not the earlier Charlton Heston one) re-imagines that sleeper agent as just a regular woman with her brother, meaning that the monsters later attack on Nevilles house is based on stupidity rather than the more intriguing betrayal of both the Charlton Heston film and the book. This robs the finale of the twist from which the book and film actually takes its name that Neville is a legend among the intelligent monsters, seen as a bogeyman for his heinous crimes against them. What we got instead was Will Smith blowing himself up, and even the alternate ending where the zombies showed intelligence didnt go far enough toward being thought-provoking. So if a reboot were to happen, I think it needs to be more faithful to the books. Smiths film certainly made for a thought-provoking watch, but by dropping the ball on the ending so massively, it created a giant what-if scenario that should be explored. It might be worth re-visiting to have another crack at it, because if you were take the material and run it in a more faithful way you could have something as visually harrowing as the Will Smith vehicle but with the unorthodox brains to match. Even though it hasnt been that long since the film was released, the prospect of seeing it done right would be too good an opportunity to miss, and if there is to be a rumored second installment, that's something we can all get excited about.