mankind zooming around in a sleek sports car, hunting deer in Times Square only to be scared off by lions and experimenting on rats in a fully equipped basement laboratory of a fortress like house. Exciting setting for a full-scale thriller to unfold.

The Shah Rukh Khan of Hollywood is back. This time he is the last (normal) man on earth, the only survivor of a scientific misadventure gone horribly wrong. He is the Legend. Will Smith may be the star with the most uniform distribution of (not necessarily the largest) of fans all over the world after Mr. Bean, but that’s another matter, which we will leave for later. He is, by freaky coincidence or divine choice, the only man who lives to see 2012. There are others who have survived but only as flesh-hunting, mindless, mutilated beings after the miracle cure for cancer mutated into a deadly virus that wiped out life.

Dr. Neville (Will Smith) has New York all for himself but has to be home and locked in before night, which is when the marauders who are scared of daylight come out of their hives. The movie is a Will Smith one-man show and he has enjoyed the unshared attention. He is the life and breath of the movie, convincing in every single frame, when he talks to dummies inside a shop or while playing golf atop an aircraft carrier, the man is topnotch.

The movie, though an adapted version of a 1954 novel of the same name, already filmed twice, is caught between being an out and out special effects thriller and the turmoil of a man left all by himself. The flashbacks that keep coming in between remind us of how things started off and there are sequences that show Dr. Neville struggling to come to terms with the harsh realities of solitary existence, which have been filmed subtly. These scenes steer the movie away from the B grade horror/action flick genre. If you are looking for some thrills, gunshots and gripping action, you have got it, in good quantity; however, the quality is not of the highest standard produced by Hollywood usually, though overall interesting and scary in parts.

The let down is the last half hour, especially the last few minutes in which the action could certainly have been better and more engaging. Though the climax is justified and was possibly the only outcome that such a movie could have had, it looks a bit hurried, all brought down in one crash not big enough to give you a high and the movie is just into its 110th minute or so. The length could not have been a cause for concern here, especially with Will Smith around.

I am Legend is fiction, no doubt. But it is not fiction that can never become a reality. Though Armageddon and Judgment Day are biblical and if you are not religious, purely fictional concepts, the rate at which man has been manipulating nature and its resources makes such an eventuality possible, if not inevitable. It is likely, though, we won’t need a mutant killer virus to take future to this dramatic stop; global warming and AIDS are equally potent candidates.

Back to the movie, one can be quite sure that it was not made with any kind of message in mind. It is not the most entertaining or gripping stuff that you can ask for and neither is it a mediocre mix of thrills and mutilated forms. There have been better films on these lines before but guess that Will Smith can make up for such inadequacies. There are logical flaws in the movie, aplenty, but then the director has been smart enough to wrap up those scenes in a jiffy and move on to the next, not giving you any time to contemplate. And there is the twist in the tale, of course Will Smith is the last man on earth and we do buy that but it leaves room for a woman and a child. But those characters do not harm the movie in any way; in fact they come in at a critical point and stay on till the end.

Watch I am Legend for some popcorn entertainment, thrills and sound effects, for once to see New York as a quiet city without traffic jams and for Will Smith, the Shah Rukh Khan of Hollywood. I am Legend is at times absurd, but it is absurdity with a difference and definitely watchable. In short, it is about a man in providential exile. Don’t watch this movie in ‘the pursuit of happiness’ that was a class apart.