I Am A Leg-End

Rating: 1/10 (11 January 2008)

Simple pieces of information for the interested, for Hollywood execs, and for those with a grip on (sur)reality:
The 160-page source novel by Richard Mathieson is a piece of genius. This effort is a piece of (dead-zombie) dog turd.
What committee designed this abomination, a whole which is a whole lot worse than the sum of its lame parts?
Egomaniac Will aside, here playing the Last Ponce of F-All, what about the sub-MTV video direction? How many illegal immigrant cinematic clichÃ©s can we pack into this redneck pickup of a movie before it drives off credibility cliff?
How many intellects can we insult with the stereotypical adversaries (was the book's dichotomy - its emergent vampire duality - so difficult to translate to screen for the credited morons here? Writer's strike? Strike them all I say. Hard.) and hodgepodge of an ending? NB: The novel's ending is rich in pathos, irony, myth and gravity. Truly outstanding and seminal. The movie's ending is rich in. . .well, banality. It'll make your jaw drop if only because you're gagging on the stench of the abundant cheese.
Of course with the ending morphed into something out of the Dubya school of fantasy finales - groans come free with the hollow gut ache and sense of deep financial loss - the title loses its original acuity. Perhaps they might have renamed it:
I Am Entirely Predictable One Dimensional God-Fearing Plush-Bottom Daytime-TV-Watching Shopping Mall Focus Group Concept Of An Apocalyptic Scenario. With An Unsubtle Jesus Reference to Close. God Bless Y'all.
Final Telegram to the jumped-up rich-boy ivy-league Nimrods who infest the studio system and don't have the depth of cultural knowledge to separate and recognise and original idea from its market place video-game rollout potential:
You. Should. Have. Given. The. Novel. To. M.Night Shayamalan. And. Shut. The. F*ck. Up. Until. Invited. To. The. Screening.
Learn to appreciate true quality: Read the book. Avoid the film until it comes out on DVD. Then burn it.