Will Smith stars in the 3rd movie adaptation of the amazing book by Richard Matheson. If you haven't read I Am Legend, the Zombie Survival Wiki highly suggests it. Although it's not about zombies, it is a great story about surviving in a post-apocalyptic world.

Movie summary

A lethal virus breaks out in 2009. A cancer vaccine gone wrong, the lethal virus decimates the population across the country. The survivors of the virus lose the power of speech, are extremely aggressive, sensative to sunlight, and seem to be living in loose clans or packs. U.S. Army virologist Lieutenant Colonel Robert Neville (Will Smith) stays behind in the contaminated area to study the infected and hopes to find a cure. Eventually, he is the last uninfected person in New York City, and for all he knows, the world.

As he struggles to find a cure, still testing and literating on previous efforts 3 years after the initial outbreak, he makes a mistake. He captures a female infected that brings the wrath of her small clan down upon him. He is miraculously saved in a pierside scene by a woman and her son - both uninfected.
Mistakes were made, however, and the infected follow them back to Neville's place where one more battle takes place moments after he finds a cure. He sacrifices his life to get the woman and son out to one of the safe harbors the unifected have created.

Alternative Ending

The DVD release includes an alternative ending. Rather than validate Neville's prior conclusions that there is no societal structure left in the infected, in the alternative ending the infected female and male are reunited and Neville's life is spared.

Reviews and Opinions

AngelaB: The best parts of the movie focus on Smith trying to cope with life as the last man on earth. He races around New York in a Mustang trying to kill deer. He dresses up mannequins and has conversations with them. He's watching all the movies at the video store in alphabetical order and is up to the Gs. He firmly believes he's the last man on earth, but goes to the pier each day at noon to wait for any other survivors.

At night, his world changes and he hunkers down in an apartment full of canned goods, shuttering his windows with reinforced steel while the "dark ones" howl outside.

The movie gets a little weak towards the end, and misses a great opportunity to look into the social world of the dark ones, but I still recommend it if only for the fabulously bleak scenes of New York in the day time.

Van says that AngelaB is right about everything

Zinc55: I thought the movie was great the first time around. In most zombie/horror films, the people in it (acting in it) are incedebily stupid and unrealistic. Will Smith's part was great, a smart guy doing things the rest of us would do. Hunker down in a house at night, scavenge in the morning and try to find a cure and other people. SPOILER ALERT: He meets a mother and her son, and they tell him there's a survivor camp in Virginia, but he refuses to listen. That's the only thing i thought was dumb the entire movie. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I liked the movie better than the book.
I would definitely recommend this to almost anyone.

I highly suggest picking up the DVD or Blue-ray Disc. It features an alternate ending, which in my opinion is much stronger than the theatrical version.