I Am Legend

(Image credit: Barry Wetcher S.M.P.S.P.)

New York scientist Will Smith thinks that he's the last person left alive after a plague wipes out Earth's population, leaving only marauding, vampire-like creatures to battle

New York scientist Will Smith thinks that he's the last person left alive after a plague wipes out Earth's population, leaving only marauding, vampire-like creatures to battle.

Smith is scintillating in what's virtually a solo tour-de-force, and the opening scenes, in which he prowls through a city that's deserted, decayed and overgrown, are particularly effective (the film-makers shut down New York and covered it with weeds and trash!), while the fact that the ghouls are sensitive to light and can only come out at night makes for an effective build-up of suspense.

The bursts of action thrill and one of cinema's great sci-fi stories (this is the third film version of Richard Matheson's tale) is turned into a smart, eerie, glossy post-apocalypse thriller.