Following Vincent Price’s incarnation as The Last Man On Earth in 1964 and Charlton Heston’s turn as The Omega Man seven years later, the third big-screen dust-off for sci-fi writer Matheson’s I Am Legend was ready to roll in 1994, with Arnold Schwarzenegger going it alone for Ridley Scott.

Unfortunately, that interesting prospect was cut short by budgetary concerns. Renowned penny-pincher Michael Bay then picked up the baton before it ended up in the hands of Constantine director Francis Lawrence.

Was it worth the 36-year wait? A record-breaking December opening in the US would certainly suggest so, and this is nothing more than you’d expect from feeding Matheson’s novel into a marketing computer with a DVD of 28 Days Later, a large digital effects invoice, and Will Smith.

But factor in lengthy periods without dialogue, a hero in constant social isolation and an ending of quease-making religiosity, and even Smith’s powers of charisma are severely put to the test.

It’s 2012 and Smith’s army virologist Neville has had New York to himself for three years. This is thanks to a certain Dr Krippen (no, seriously), whose miracle cure for cancer had a nasty side-effect: it obliterated the human race.

His wife and daughter died in the tragedy but Neville still has his trusty Alsatian, Sam, for company. Driven by hope, discipline and a healthy sense of self-preservation, he takes solace from his daily routine.

After testing his immunity on infected lab rats, he heads down to the river at noon (as promised to any survivors who may hear his looped radio broadcast), then spends his afternoons chasing deer through the deserted city in a cool Ford Mustang or using the nearest aircraft carrier as a golf range.

Nightfall, however, brings lockdown as domain over the city passes to the unlucky beings who contracted the virus and lived. These ferocious ‘infected’ are no longer human. But they are getting bolder. And – as Neville discovers to his cost – they aren’t as stupid as they look.

The overgrown urban jungle of New York is an arresting sight, and the film is at its best out on its digitally emptied streets. And though there are frequent periods of dramatic downtime, the action, when it comes, is loud and fierce.

But there’s a Resident Evil-ness about it which has you looking for the words ‘actual gameplay footage’ whenever the infecteds appear.

This disengaging effect is amplified by a script which muddles Matheson’s ideas and seems to have an aversion to expanding its own.

What, for instance, keeps Neville in the same place for three years? The discipline and stubbornness of the military scientist within or the more primal fear of the unknown?

Neither does he seem particularly conflicted. Until, that is, he unleashes a late rant of despair which contradicts his previous behaviour (looking for a cure; waiting for survivors; maintaining standards of decency) and is plainly shoehorned-in to advance the overblown Christian allegory.

Issues of depth aside, this is as distracting an event movie as there’s been all year. But it’s the stuff of multiplex, not legend.

Elliott Noble