THE third screen version of Richard Matheson's novella has an unusually-serious Will Smith as the last man on earth. Vincent Price and Charlton Heston took the role in previous films, and at one point Arnold Schwarzenegger was pencilled in to star under Ridley Scott's direction.

That would have been a very different picture, more of a one-man action movie than this more thoughtful effort which Smith and others think of as an art film concealed within a blockbuster overcoat.

Smith has the screen to himself for the first 70 minutes as brilliant scientist Robert Neville who's the last human survivor in a deserted New York City which, in the three years since the world was wiped out by a man-made virus, has been his playground.

He has only a dog and the mutant victims of the plague, the Infected by any other name, for company. The latter only come out after dark which leaves him safe during the day to speed around empty roads in his sports car and forage for food and DVDs.

Come sundown, he retreats to his house in Washington Square, fortified against attack and his remaining link with the wife and daughter he saw killed in the chaotic flight from the city as the plague took hold.

Smith is a very watchable and likeable actor, well able to carry the audience along in his solo one-man-and-his-dog performance. The main problem is the Infected, conjured up through a mix of actors and CGI that aren't scary enough despite their superpowers. The blooddripping zombie-like beasts in 28 Days/Weeks Later were more effective.

And director Francis Lawrence forces himself into a narrative corner from which there's no easy escape, leaving to an unsatisfactory ending.

Stars: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Dash Mihok
Running time: 100 mins
Rating: Four stars