After Earth Reviews

It is not as if I immediately hate on M Night Shyamalan. The Sixth Sense was a masterpiece and Unbreakable was great. Of the movies that get a lot of hate The Village was the least bad, not great but pretty decent(while Shyamalan didn't direct but produced and wrote Devil, that also applies here). Signs was pretty good until it went off the boil in the second half, which really brought things down to a significant degree. The others were as bad as I'd heard. Lady in the Water was well-made generally and I liked Bryce Dallas Howard in it as well as the score but the rest was a muddled mess. The Happening and The Last Airbender suffered mainly from having such potential but falling hard big time, Happening did have some unintentional comic value(mainly because Mark Walhberg's acting was so laughably bad) and Airbender had great visuals and score.

After Earth didn't have as much potential as those two but didn't have any of the things that raised the other two up a slight notch. That of which in my mind makes After Earth worse. It is not the worst film I've seen or one of the worst and but it is the worst film that I've seen so far this year. I wouldn't say that James Newton Howard's score is bad actually here. It does have some beautiful sounds, it's just sparingly used and while well-composed and fitting it is also one of those scores that I came out of the cinema not remembering most of. The visuals didn't do anything for me either, the sets were surprisingly drab and unimaginative and the special effects were very repetitively used. The photography and editing had moments where they were decent but others where they were amateurish, too many times steering towards the latter, the jump cut shots were just annoying and took away from any shocks, tension or suspense. With Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, up until after The Village Shyamalan showed potential but after that point saw him getting lazy. And that was the case with After Earth, I saw little if any heart or character in the directing.

Same with the story and scripting too. The dialogue was so awkward-sounding and clichéd, often I found myself not being able to take what I was hearing seriously. Instead of making me get engrossed in the characters, their situation and feelings, I found that the dialogue and delivery was just distracting. Shyamalan showed with Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and the first half of Signs that he did have potential to tell a good story. Since though, his storytelling has consisted of some good ideas that are executed badly, all too clear here. The already admittedly by-the-numbers story here was incredibly plodding and confused, very little made sense and there was nothing gripping. I found it very difficult to get emotionally invested in the characters either or the father-son relationship(a bad thing considering that this is the driving force really of the film). The acting was very poor, even from pretty and quite talented Sophie Okonedo, who was under-utilised. Will Smith is a likable actor and guy, but has never been this one-note or disengaged before, maybe his character was meant to be like that but it didn't mean that Smith had to take it to extremes.

Jaden Smith, Will Smith's own son, was even worse, and along with the story his performance was probably the worst thing about the film. He had nowhere near enough experience for this type of film and probably in general(though he was not too bad in The Karate Kid), and clearly looked uncomfortable. Along with a very uncharismatic presence and painful dialogue delivery his performance was stilted and (in the voice) very shrill, it is one of the worst child performances on film I've seen personally- that's saying a fair bit too- and I sensed no chemistry at all between him and his dad which for obvious reasons is quite ironic. All in all, a really terrible film and the only film of Shyamalan's that, apart from perhaps the nicely composed if spare and at the end of the day forgettable score, was close to having no redeeming values.

Critics have increasingly gotten an undeservedly bad rap, true there have been a fair number of times where I have disagreed with them but After Earth is one of those times where they got it exactly right. And before anybody who likes it flames me, I did watch After Earth with an open mind and no prejudices, though admittedly with knowledge of its reputation. If you liked it, good for you, I and a lot of other people didn't and for perfectly valid reasons and should be allowed to think what we want. If you can't see that, that's your problem, not ours, and this is in general on IMDb. Sorry for the irrelevant rant there but I have seen a lot of critic-bashing going on lately and lots of accusations like "being pretentious", "pretending to like it", "having the inability to make up our own mind" and "not having a sense of humour" and I'm getting sick and tired of it. And please stop using the racism argument, it is very shallow and it is not fair for people who did genuinely see it, rated it fairly as we thought and for whom racism and bigotry is a pet peeve of theirs.

1/10 Bethany Cox

What the hell was Will Smith thinking?!? I mean, so far, he has always made some rather smart choices in his career but it is not very often that you will come accross such a misguided vanity project. First of all, why did he choose M. Night Shyamalan to direct this? The guy has one of the most pathetic track records in the business and there was a fair probability that he would mess this one up as well. Eventually, it wasn't one of Shyamalan's worst efforts, I'll give you that, but it was still pretty weak. To make things worse,  Smith decided to shamelessly promote his son's career and gave him the lead in this story,  no less than that. Well, they got lucky with 'The Karate Kid' which turned out to be watchable, but, here, Jaden Smith was just not convincing at all and his performance was rather cringe-inducing. I mean, they took a lot of risks as Will Smith got hurt fairly early  in the movie so it meant that the young boy basically had to carry the whole thing on his shouders and it was apparently too much for him, I'm afraid. To conclude, it was pretty weak and I don't think it is really worth a look. 

This film is bloody brilliant! M. Night Shyamalan just keeps making an excellent, while the mainstream are misjudging its potential. Seriously, I am now convinced at that point where anything made by Night is guaranteed an excellent film. Those film critics don't know what they're talking about.

Kinda decent science fiction but failed box office movie. It was not another 'Avatar' or 'Oblivion' as per those who hated it, for a theme like this they expect strong and powerful protagonist who fights aliens and victorious. But this movie was quite calm and silent, lot like a novel for everyone with the two characters and one simple quest to accomplish. Yes I agree the movie was resemble the quality of some television mini series and I believe it should have been one.

For me it was two time better than the 'Hunger Games', 'Hanger Games' had few fine stunts and people loves it. I feel there's no wrong in giving an artistic touch to a movie with a concept like this. I am not saying it was an art movie. Yes there were a few scenes where the movie had unacceptable portions which are not fitting properly into the story. Especially the boy rescued by a giant bird and in the first place why they are transporting the S'krell, better they should have killed it in Nova Prime. The unexplanation was the main damage to the movie, they might thought to brief now and it brought in its sequel.

Finally I agree it was not an awesome but an average movie, definitely not worth to try it on a big screen but to rent it or to see on cable it is not that bad. Another drawback was to see Will sitting in one place throughout the movie, more like he agreed to do it to introduce his son Jade in advanced matured role and also to boost movie's hype with his star value. In few parts I fell on the boredom because the movie had no serious lines like yellings and shoutings and gun fights. Overall, not liked it much neither hated.

"Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity."

It's telling that After Earth is the latest directorial effort of M. Night Shyamalan, but the marketing campaign has made absolutely no mention of this fact. A one-time critical wunderkind, Shyamalan has fallen far from grace, reaching an all-time low with 2010's The Last Airbender, which should've ended his filmmaking career. Although After Earth is not a Shyamalan movie in the typical sense (he only co-wrote, and the story isn't his), it retains the director's eye-rolling trademarks: awkward pauses, muted performances and a subdued atmosphere. Unfortunately, this translates to a lethally boring sci-fi production with flaccid direction, making After Earth a total drag instead of a mind-blowing action-adventure.

In the future, Earth has become uninhabitable, compelling the human race to abandon their home and colonise the distant planet of Nova Prime. Said planet is home to an aggressive race of aliens called Ursas, who are blind but can smell their prey's fear. Military leader Cypher Raige (Will Smith) is the best at battling the Ursas, learning to relinquish his fear and thus become invisible to the predators. Unfortunately, Cypher's son Kitai (Jaden Smith, Will's son) is falling short of his father's expectations, though he wants to prove himself. On a whim, Cypher takes Kitai on a mission into deep space with an Ursa egg in the cargo hold. But the ship crumbles in deep space, causing them to crash-land on Earth, leaving everyone dead except for Cypher and Kitai. They require a beacon to signal for help, but it's in the tail-section of the ship, located about 100 kilometres of dangerous terrain away. Cypher has two broken legs, thus Kitai is their only hope.

If nothing else, After Earth is a unique viewing experience since it displays what happens when Shyamalan and a star with a comparably inflated ego collaborate to produce a metaphorical, self-regarding, semi-autobiographical motion picture. After all, Will Smith wrote the story, casting himself as the most awesome and famous dude in the universe who tries to guide his teenage son to follow in his intimidating footsteps. Boy, that's subtle. And let's take a moment to let it sink in that Will's character is named Cypher Raige. Fucking Cypher Raige! What's tragic about After Earth is that this is a boring survival story backed with a potentially exciting mythology. The film does attempt to explore it via voiceover in the opening credits, but it fails to do much else, leaving unanswered questions and untapped potential, especially since a whole lot of literature was actually written regarding this world. Why have humans stopped using guns and projectile weapons of all sorts in the future? They only use blades here, yet firearms would be much more effective against the Ursas.

What's astonishing about After Earth is how small it feels. Here's a story set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and yet Kitai wanders through endless regular-looking forests and landscapes as opposed to destroyed cities or anything else that would've made for compelling viewing. The fact that the film lacks scope makes me wonder where exactly the $130 million budget went (no doubt Shyamalan and Will Smith took a large portion each). Meanwhile, none of Earth's animals have evolved in any creative way, and the digital effects are seriously terrible. The computer screens and space stuff look okay, but the animals look like a PS2-era video game. Superior CGI has been glimpsed in movies on the SyFy Channel. Furthermore, Shyamalan does not have a firm enough grasp on large-scale action. Despite the deadly scenarios that Kitai becomes entangled in, the movie just isn't exciting. Even the final showdown between Kitai and an Ursa (which lasts all of five minutes) is a bore. The attempts at suspense and tension fall flat, with hindrances (running low on breathing fluid, being stung by a bug) coming off as perfunctory and rote. There's nothing to put you on the edge of your seat. The only surprising thing about After Earth is that it's not in 3D. Whoa.

Since this is a vanity project for Will Smith, his performance is incredibly self-serious. The actor sheds his comedic, light-hearted persona entirely, becoming emotionless and stoic. While it's somewhat commendable for Smith to attempt to stretch his range, he's not playing to his strengths here. Try as he might, Smith is hit-and-miss as a serious performer, and he's dull as dishwater as Raige. And nothing against Jaden Smith, but the young guy is terrible here. Flat, forced, unengaged and unengaging, Jaden does nothing worthwhile with the script. As a result, all of the dramatic scenes between Will and Jaden are boring, destroying all potential for a compelling survival tale. It's pretty unsurprising, though, as the actors in Shyamalan movies are often sombre and sedate. Outside of the Smith boys, there really aren't any other performers worth mentioning, as they all receive what amounts to cameo appearances.

Judged as a father-son survival story, After Earth is dramatically limp and uninvolving. And as a science fiction action-adventure, it's even worse, with barely a handful of set pieces, none of which provide any lasting impact. The film looks decent enough, but the unconvincing CGI is too distracting, and ultimately, there's nothing new to see here. After Earth cannot have been created by the same M. Night Shyamalan who gave us the masterpieces of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs. Where the hell has that artistic, intelligent filmmaker gone? This movie feels like the work of a gun-for-hire who just doesn't care anymore.

4.1/10