Will Smith's closely shorn hair is flecked with gray, just another reminder of how he has matured as an actor. If there is any doubt (and there should not be, after two Oscar nominations), he has a heartbreaking scene in the middle of "I Am Legend."

He may well be the last man on Earth, and his tenuous grasp on his solitary existence is slipping away. Standing in a video store, where he has named the mannequins and jokingly addresses them on his regular visits to borrow DVDs, he turns to one of the frozen figures.

"Hello. Hello. Please say hello to me," he says, as he starts to cry. It's a touching reminder of just how hopelessly lonely his world has become in the year 2012.

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'I Am Legend'

• Starring: Will Smith
• Director: Francis Lawrence
• Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence.
• Web site: 'I Am Legend'

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"I Am Legend" is the third adaptation of Richard Matheson's short 1954 novel of the same name. The first starred Vincent Price as "The Last Man on Earth," while the second cast Charlton Heston as "The Omega Man."

This version, directed by Francis Lawrence (who did lots of music videos and "Constantine"), locates the survivor in New York, which makes for some dazzling images of a sheared off Brooklyn Bridge, streets clogged with dusty, abandoned cars and cornfields, weeds and wild animals roaming where traffic once throbbed.

The transformation, real and digital, is something to behold.

The story opens with the medical miracle that, ultimately, will spell mankind's downfall: A cure for cancer. Within three years, however, an engineered virus wreaks havoc on humanity and kills 90 percent of the world's population.

A small number were immune while the remainder have transformed into "dark seekers" who feed on the healthy. They are howling, hairless beings with partially translucent skin who move with the speed of animal predators.

Successfully eluding them, up until now, has been military virologist Robert Neville (Smith), who lives near Washington Square Park with his German shepherd, the only vestige of his family. The first hour or so follows him on his rounds as he charts where the mutants hide, engages in pastimes such as driving golf balls off an aircraft carrier and labors over a serum to cure the virus.

The end of civilization is told in jagged pieces, from flashbacks to evidence such as the clipping headlined "Mass Graves to Fill Central Park" or the van Gogh that hangs above the scientist's television. Like the Monet on another wall, no one else was gazing upon its beauty, so why not?

It turns out Neville might not be alone, but he has not abandoned his determination that he is in Ground Zero and "I can still fix this."

"I Am Legend" comes to an abrupt, unsatisfying close after a leisurely introduction to this world of the near-future. The sci-fi action picture runs 100 minutes and seems as if it could have used another 10 minutes to feel complete instead of hurried.

Without a doubt, its mutants are the most frightening of the three adaptations of the Matheson book. Their cries, which sound like primitive dinosaurs or demons unleashed from hell, and habit of hurling themselves at prospective victims make this film absolutely deserving of its PG-13 rating.

It flirts with the Almighty's role in all of this, from a sign in the abandoned city proclaiming "God still loves us" to Neville's opinion about the existence of God. But philosophical musings lose out to action scenes in this movie showcasing Smith's talents as an actor who can prowl the streets with a rifle, crack wise with his dog or try to fend for his family as order dissolves into chaos, panic and fear.

But the end of the world, as we know it, could have used a better ending. •