On a January afternoon in the mid-'90s, I was standing on Broadway in Manhattan's normally bustling midtown. I looked uptown and saw absolutely nobody. I was the only person on the street for a few seconds before a few other shivering fellow pedestrians appeared. A few minutes later, I saw a guy cross-country skiing down the legendary street. The occasion was the immediate aftermath of one of the city's worst blizzards ever, and the streets were practically deserted.

So I know what Will Smith's character in "I Am Legend" feels like, except for when I was there, not everybody else on the planet had been ravaged by a plague, and there weren't any flesh-eating mutants in sight. New York City is difficult enough to navigate, both physically and emotionally, without flesh-eating mutants hassling you.

In "I Am Legend," based on the long-popular 1954 sci-fi novel, Smith plays Robert Neville, an Army doctor who remains the last person surviving in New York City -- and perhaps the world -- following a massive viral epidemic caused by a vaccine gone horribly wrong. Those who did not die from the epidemic mutated into night creatures, hideous half-humans who feast on humans, killing the survivors, except for Neville.

Now he prowls the streets by day hunting wild animals and practicing his golf swing, inspiring himself with old Bob Marley songs, while desperately still working on the cure for the virus that has so long eluded him. He also suffers agonizing flashbacks, and fears he is losing his mind, with only his trusted dog as a companion. A new tragic event forces Neville to consider if he can go on any longer. It takes a last-minute, unexpected intrusion in his life to help him hang on.

"I Am Legend" is one of those bigger-than-big films, epic in scope if not length, that needs to bring the noise. To do that, it must introduce the mutants, the horror fiends that accompany the science fiction, to stay true to its literary source and satisfy the zombie-lovers crowd. By doing so, though, it must leave its best possibilities for frights behind -- the kind that would arrive were Smith's character left completely alone, with nothing but his own mind to terrorize him.

As is, however, "I Am Legend" is both exciting and grim entertainment, seemingly more of a summer crowd-pleaser thing than a holiday delight, going from quiet and desperate to loud and terrifying.

The film gives Smith the chance to do some acting without benefit of playing off others, and he handles the task nicely. It's easy to root for a guy like him. "I Am Legend" is also an effects smorgasbord, with real Manhattan landmarks made up as deserted, dusty and broken. It's a film that will satisfy adrenaline junkies, even if it doesn't realize its full potential as psychological drama. The best bet for this movie season's theater box-office king, you likely won't feel too lonely as you watch.

B

"I Am Legend"

Starring: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Dash Mihok

Director: Francis Lawrence

Studio: Warner Bros. Films

Rated: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence)

RT: 100 minutes