I have to paraphrase the comedian on Jay Leno a few weeks ago. If you read the book, why do you even go to the movie? They make the movies for people that are too lazy to read the book. Of course the book is better, you get to imagine the exact thing the author was trying to narrate. The movie is the cliff note version with bigger explosions.

As for my review:

I knew nothing about this coming into it, so I had no expectations. Except that I wanted to see Will Smith be all alone in the world and have to try and find somebody out there. Not have modified super-humans come out at night and try to kill him.

It was interesting to see what he would do as the last person on the planet. How long could you live with every materialistic thing you want, but nobody to share it with?

I'm glad I saw it, but I think it should have been a dvd rental instead of a movie theater film. And it had more potential than it lived up to.

Disappointed. From what everyone has mentioned of the book, I had high hopes of the movie, especially the ending. Will Smith having mannequins everywhere, genius. Creepy, but genius. I wanted one to be named Wilson. Ending terrible.

Bacon.

I'm confused.

Everyone here seems to think the book involved vampires. It was quite clear, as far as my memory goes, that it was actually an "unrelated" virus that and the infected only "believed" they were vampires. Neville goes on to explain this by way of example of dealing with 'Jewish' and 'Muslim' infected, and their reaction to their respective holy icons (vs the cross for most of the Christians assumed to be local in Neville's area).

Either way, people who complain about movies not representing books, are like people who complain about... erm, well I don't know... people who complain about useless stuff.

With the possible exception of The Third Man and maybe Lord of the Rings, there are not many movies that closely reflect the book upon which they are based. And even then, LoTR left out quite a bit...


Mr Mephisto

I probably will never read the book, but Id be interested to know how it differed from the movie. I thought it was great. Ofcourse I watched the DVD with a surround sound sytem cranked. IMO Will Smith has come a long way in acting. Yes there are movies he has done where he fell into his signature "Bad Boys" persona. In Pursuit of Happiness displayed better qualities. Or it could be Im just a dog lover. As far as plugs, what are you going to see in NYC? Would it have looked authentic to not have any signs up?

I can't help but thinking that this film would have been so much better with the ending of the book, even if it was un-"Hollywood".

That ending is one of the few times I have been shocked, since it was so far from the norm which we are used to seeing in every film, where the good prevail.

It also had an interesting message Spoiler: That we are only normal because we are the majority, which to me, is something I hadn't though about too much up to that point.

Agreed. After watching the movie all I could think was, ya know they kinda missed the point here.

Oh, but it is a really short book.