Sunday 13 January 2008

Saturday night "up west"

In an effort to tick off some of our 'things to do in London' list, we went to the cinema in Leicester Square last night.

Leicester Square is being given a revamp over the next few years to make it more attractive to tourists and less scruffy. When I saw this on the news last week, I didn't really know what the problem was as I hadn't remembered it being particularly scruffy...but looking at it anew on Saturday evening, it does seem a bit rough around the edges...

Not that it's any cheaper for it though - £17.50 each for circle seats in the big Odeon (the one where all the premiers are held). The usual exorbitant prices for popcorn etc. But it is a lovely cinema and you've got to do these things now and again!

Went to see "I am Legend", which sees Will Smith as the last man in New York after a cancer curing virus mutates, wiping out 95% of the world's population and turning most of the rest into "socially de-evolved dark-seekers" - aggressive zombie-like things which only come out after dusk, killing and eating anything they can and exhibiting no traces of their former 'humanity'. Will is the soldier-scientist who pledges himself to finding a cure for the virus, having packed his wife and child off to safety as New York is annexed for the greater good, only to see them die in a helicopter crash caused by mass panic and hysteria. Left alone with only his daughter's pet dog for company, he spends his days looking for other survivors, testing out variations on a possible cure on rats and the occasional dark-seeker that he manages to trap and catch. He spends his nights cowering in fear behind bolted doors as the darkness gives life to all kinds of nasty things!

In the end our hero is joined by a woman and child (who somehow get to Manhattan although all the bridges were bombed when the island was annexed). I won't give the end away needless to say it's fairly Hollywood...

It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be and it was pretty gripping throughout. But for a much more thoughtful take on a similar premise (i.e. humanity nearly wiped out by a virus), I'd recommend "Earth Abides" by George Stewart.

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