I Am Legend? More like 'I Am Disappointed'.

Here we go again... Hollywood just can't seem to figure out that the remake thing just isn't working too well.

There was the shot-for-shot remake of Psycho.

Then they had to go and screw up The Thomas Crown Affair.

Most recently they thought that The Omen could be a lot better if they just remade it with an inferior cast and music that didn't have half the s**t your pants quotient that the original had.

And now Richard Matheson's classic novella "I Am Legend" is getting the treatment.

All right, I hear you already: C'mon, Guy... this book has already been turned into two less-than-stellar movies. Why not another?

Because. So there!

Alright, I'll get a bit more in depth. First off, I haven't seen Vincent Price's "The Last Man on Earth" but I hear it wasn't exactly a Doctor Phibes.

And as for "The Omega Man", get your stinkin' paws off of my boy Chucky Heston! I actually like that flick! Sure it's dated. Sure it's cheesey. One could even say that its ahead-of-its-time portrayal of postapocalyptic sexual race relations is totally done in by some (hindsight mind you) truly offensive dialog. Actually I thought that the Harlem reference (rent the flick if you don't know what I'm talking about) was pretty funny but I can understand people being offended.

Well now the Hollywood intelligentsia has decided that the time is ripe to make another movie version of the book. Given that both of the previous versions differ fairly significantly from Matheson's brilliant book I would ordinarily be pretty keen on the idea of a more faithful version going into production. But there's always a problem, isn't there?

Allow me to introduce the problem:















What! What! Thass right yo! Big Willie hisself is gwine ta be de stahhh o' dis heaah joint.

Sorry. The producers of this blog would like to announce that the previous writer has been sacked. On with the rant.

Anyway, the powers that be feel that with an unblemished record that includes such artistic and box office favorites as "The Wild Wild West", "Hitch", and "I Robot", who better to finally achieve perfection in realizing Richard Matheson's greatest story since "Hell House"?

At this point I'm gonna assume that you, gentle reader, haven't read the fershlugginer book and give you a quick rundown as to what it's all about. Note: if you've seen The Omega Man, you've already got the general idea.

Okay, written some time in the 1950's, the story is set in the 1970's. You know... the future. Anyway, a small-scale nuclear war between China and the Soviet Union has kicked a lot of junk into the air that didn't use to be there, things like borscht, rice, vaporized panda bears and, oh yeah... a virus that causes vampirism!

Against this sort of vampiric "On the Beach" we are introduced to the character of Robert Neville; the last normal human being left on the earth. He has had to incinerate his young daughter during the worldwide crisis and even had to stake his wife after she died and came back home as a rotting, diseased vampire who missed her hubby and his supply of delicious blood. Now he's left to wander the wasteland of Los Angeles by day and hole up in his suburban house after dark, the object of all of L.A.'s newest trend: sucking the blood from the living. All right, I admit that last part sounds more like keen observation rather than science fiction but it's meant as science fiction. The fact that modern L.A. sort of resembles Matheson's 'future' L.A. in some ways isn't his fault.

Anyway if you want to know more just read the book. As far as this sure-to-be-craptastic version though, well you'll pardon me if I beg off for now. Now originally this was set to star Ahnuld himself. That would have sucked too but I just can't imagine seeing this done up as some sort of MiB-ish turdfest. Don't get me wrong, I liked MiB... I just don't wanna see this turn into that.

Oh well, I guess if anyone in Hell-A gave a flying handfull of monkey poo about what I thought, then I wouldn't currently be a Federal Stooge would I?

Just remember, when you see this stinker and don't like it...

I TOLD ya so!

Oh, and Blogger? Thanks fer screwin' me on the pics again! Chintzy bastards!