I want my sad ending!

Rating: 4/10 (2 January 2008)

I Am Legend is one of a type of film that just drive me to distraction, and the type are films that feel the need to take stories with "downer" endings and make them happy.
This sort of thing has been going on in Hollywood from the start with a silent version of Romeo & Juliet where people in charge of the company making it insisted they not only not kill themselves, but go skipping off to a happy ending.
Then the writer and director demurred and insisted on the original ending, that was probably the first example of respect for the source material in Hollywood, it was possible also the last.
If you can give the Hunchback of Notre Dom a happy zippy ending I guess you can give one to I Am Legend.
However I have to say I just don't get why you would want to take a classic novel, or play and then so alter it beyond the original that they would have probable done better just going their on thing.
Stories like the one this film are based on are, in a way, like a joke, only instead of building to a ha ha ha it builds to an Ah ha or Ohhhh.
To go though all that and then change the punch line from the original "punch line" is a cheat, and frankly in my opinion an insult to the audience.
"Oh, you poor dolts, you can't handle an unhappy ending, don't worry will give you a happy happy, joy joy." I say give me the downer, I can take it.
Betty