Compare and Contrast between World War Z and I Am Legend

Today thriller movies have few things in common including events, settings, and the

characters. Of course there are just as many differences used to keep the audience interested.

These are types of films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of

anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension.

Thriller and suspense films are virtually synonymous and interchangeable categorizations, with

similar characteristics and features . If the genre is to be defined in details, a genuine thriller is a

film that restlessly pursues a single-minded goal which is to provide thrills and keep the

audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. The thriller

movies I am using in this essay are World War Z and I Am Legend.

These two movies have more differences than similarities which consist of characteristics

that make them unique in their own way. The first similarity between World War Z and I Am

Legend is that they are both based on novels. It is quite interesting because from there, we can

see the differences and similarities that the directors have produced in the movies compared to

the novels. The next similarity between these two thriller movies is that both of them are about

apocalypse that happened that wiped out most of the human race because of zombies or also

known as mutants. In World War Z, the zombies move very quickly, biting people and the bitten

being turned very rapidly. It was said that it takes approximately 12 seconds for a bitten person

to change while the zombies in I Am Legend are quite similar except that it takes a longer time

for a bitten person to turn.

The first difference that I clearly noticed between these two thriller movies is the characters.

In World War Z, the movie started by introducing a family of four. They travelled and ran

together in the beginning until they had to separate because Gerry Lane, the main actor was

given a task to find cure in a military base in South Korea. He agreed to help, on given the word

that his family will be safe. In I Am Legend, the movie started with a guy named Robert Neville

wandering around a deserted city with only his dog by his side. When the movie started to build

up, then only Robert’s family was introduced in a flashback that Robert had in his dream. He

actually lost his wife and son in a helicopter accident that was caused by the zombie

apocalypse.

Even though both of the movies happened in cities in the beginning but the specific settings

and name of the cities are different. For World War Z, it took place in Philadelphia at first, then

they escaped to New Jersey where they stayed in a small apartment with a Latino family. After

that they kept moving because they believed that the best chance of survival is to keep moving

so the settings kept on changing while for I Am Legend, the movie only took place in New York

City. Robert did not want to leave the city because he thought that he already have all the

things needed to survive which is food, shelter and weapons. Besides that, he has a lab in his

basement that he used for experimenting on the zombies and finding a cure for them but at the

end, he left the city in order to search for other survivors.

The third and the last thing that makes these two movies different is the ending. In World

War Z, at the end, Gerry did not find a cure to turn the zombies back into normal form but he

discovered a vaccine that enabled him to face the zombies without being noticed and attacked.

He injected himself to see if his theory would work and he was able to walk out, past the horde

of zombies. In I Am Legend, Robert finally discovered a cure to turn the zombies back to

normal. He captured a zombie early in the beginning and he did a few test on her with vaccines

and all of them failed but at the end, it finally worked.

For my opinion, although both of the movies have differences, both of them really give the

incredible impact of thrill and suspense to the audience. I do wish I Am Legend would end a bit

differently but some of the scenes in both movies did make me feel as if I’m actually in the

movies because of the intense and the feels that the they conveyed which makes me think that

those two movies are few of the best zombie movies. Hopefully in the future, there will be

more thriller movies produced that can reach a high standard like these two movies or possibly higher.