What happened here?
Author:
keiichi73 from United States
IMDB Link
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Generally, Sci-Fi is supposed to fill us with awe with its visions of
other worlds and of the future. All After Earth managed to fill me with
is an overall sense of boredom. This is a lifeless adventure story
about a gruff military father and his son bonding when they are both
stranded on an abandoned planet Earth. The father and son dynamic,
which is supposed to be the main dramatic force which drives the story,
fails because we don't believe in the relationship, and the actors have
zero chemistry. This is odd, considering said actors are the real life
father and son, Will and Jaden Smith.
After Earth is the latest movie from director M. Night Shyamalan. Not
that the studio would like you to know this. You might remember how
just a few years ago, the studios heavily hyped each release from the
director, plastering his name all over the poster and ad campaign.
However, after a series of expensive flops, Shyamalan's name is no
longer a selling point. And so, they literally have hidden his
involvement with this stillborn movie that contains some of the
shoddiest CG effects I've seen in a big budget summer movie. Just look
at the CG baboons, lions and eagles that threaten our heroes during the
course of the film. Compare it to the work done with the CG animals in
Life of Pi, and the end result is almost comical.
The plot - We learn through endless, droning exposition that humans
have been forced to flee Earth for another home planet. Considering the
recent Tom Cruise Sci-Fi film, Oblivion, opened in a similar manner, it
only made me wish I was watching that film instead. The humans have
generally been living peacefully on their new world, except for some
pesky encounters with some big, ugly aliens called Ursa who are blind,
and can detect people only by smelling their fear. They're yet another
hostile alien race who have mastered the art of the jump scare, but not
intelligent conversation, since all they can do is roar, growl, and
generally look and act like generic CG.
One of the main war heroes in the battle against the Ursa is General
Cypher Kaige (Will Smith). Cypher is a tough, battle-hardened military
man who seems to have a hard time differentiating his work life from
his home life. His son is Kitai (Jaden Smith), a young boy who
desperately wants his father's approval, and is trying for a position
in the military, but fears he will never live up to dad's lofty
expectations for him. Kitai is also haunted by the memory of seeing his
older sister, Senshi (Zoe Kravitz), being killed by an Ursa right
before his eyes. Cypher's wife suggests a father-son space voyage, so
that they can bond. This doesn't go very well, as the ship is severely
damaged in an asteroid belt, killing everyone on board except Cypher
and Kitai, and sending the ship crashing on the abandoned planet Earth.
So, now they're trapped on Earth, and must rely on each other for
survival. Cypher has broken both of his legs in the crash, so it is up
to Kitai to get them home. The journey Kitai undertakes is supposed to
make him into a man, while allowing his father to win respect for him.
This could be effective, if it weren't portrayed in such a crashingly
obvious way. Each adventure he undertakes is small in scope - He runs
away from a pack of baboons, he fights off some lions, he is briefly
poisoned by a parasitic creature...All of these encounters seem like
annoyances, rather than grand adventures. There is no sense of scope
here, no sense of awe or wonder.
But the real question here is, how could the performances by both Will
and Jaden Smith be so wooden, unemotional, and unconvincing? I'm not
exactly sure, but my best guess is that they took their character
descriptions completely to heart. In the case of Will Smith, I imagine
his character bio read something like this - "Cypher is an emotionally
distant, gruff military man who has a hard time showing emotion, or
being open with his son". And so, Will Smith interprets his character
as if he is completely devoid of any emotion whatsoever. He reads all
of his lines in a passive, monotone voice. It got to the point where I
found myself wondering if I wasn't watching the wax statue figure of
Will Smith from Madame Tussaud's museum instead.
The performance by young Jaden Smith is not much better. He often comes
across as shrill and grating, his voice pitched at this high and whiny
tone. It just made me want to peel him right off the screen and replace
him with another actor every time he opened his mouth. Who is to blame
for these awful turns by these actors who have been likable in the
past? Was the director's heart just not in this project? That sounds
reasonable. Say what you will about Shyamalan's recent body of work,
but I've often found something to admire in the look of a lot of his
films. Here, we get no interesting visuals. Even the fleeting glimpses
we get of humanity's new planet home are disappointing, and look like
they were shot on a studio soundstage.
After Earth is the kind of movie experience you want to forget as soon
as possible. In a year that has already brought us Sci-Fi films like
Oblivion and the flawed-but-enjoyable Star Trek Into Darkness, this
movie feels all the more insignificant and lame.
