M. Night Shyamalan once was considered to be the next Spielberg. Unfortunately he has made a couple of movies which were receiving a lot of negative reviews. The once promising prince had turned into a frog and a lot of people have written him off. Is After Earth the movie which can kiss him back into a prince or even a king? Or Is it a case of the emperor’s new clothes?
The movie reunites the father/son team of Will and Jayden Smith after they acted together in The Pursuit of Happyness. Will Smith has been a very big star for ages and with the remake of The Karate Kid Jayden has shown potential as well. After Earth is set in the future and people had to leave earth in order to survive. Although they found a new planet they had to fight aliens who were hard to defeat. Will Smith’s character literally is a man without fear. It allows him to ghost, which means that he becomes invisible to the aliens who can see only by smelling fear. His son, played by Jayden Smith has a name to live up to but does not seem able to reach the required level. His father asks him to join him om a mission, but when their ship crashes it’s up to the son to go on a dangerous mission to save himself and his heavily injured father.
Shyamalan’s movies usually have some sort of twist but that’s not the case here. It Is a story about facing your fear while struggling to survive. Unfortunately I did not think Jayden Smith Was the right actor for the role. He didn’t manage to give the character the weight he needed. He came across as extremely fragile and the part needed other emotions as well. Another actor might have pulled it of better. Will Smith has a smaller role as the father who is tough for his son. A role I thought he played quite well. As for the story itself, I was invested in it but during the third act of the film everything started falling apart. I sat there thinking to myself ‘no, they will not go there with those animals’ and then they did. It is a shame as the movie really did not need it. It was one of those things which made it all feel predictable and empty. With After Earth M. Night Shyamalan is not back on top but it is not the bad movie I think other reviewers have made it out to be.
I didn’t hate this like so many others did, but I will admit that it was a bit dull for what it was. But given what M. Night has been known to do as of late, I have to give this movie some credit. Good review Nostra.
I did not hate it as much either, but it didn’t realize its potential. Thanks Dan!
Frankly, nepotism like this needs to be stamped out. The film had a good grounding in sci-fi, but the decision boggled my mind – like having Will Smith, one of the most bankable stars IN THE WORLD, sitting on his ass for the entire film while Jaden goes out and does the heavy lifting. The world the film creates is interesting, but unexplored once the ship crashes to Earth.
Nice review, man, but I can’t agree with a 6. I think I gave it a 4….
Well, I did not mind Will Smith being stuck in one place for the biggest part of the movie, but I had no problems with that. It was that Jayden wasn’t able to do the heavy lifting completely in a convincing way. I can understand why you would score it lower though.
Whatever happened to him? After his last few films I simply couldn’t bring myself to sit through this.
Yeah, there have been some movies which I was not a big fan of either…we will have to see what he will do next…
I tend to agree with Rodney on this one. Will Smith has said he worked with his son on the story and to be honest I don’t think either of them have the talent in that department to be relying on that as a basis for a successful movie. Smith’s star power and abilities as an actor are a definite plus, while Jaden has shown he has potential but this felt like a family outing without the contribution of an alternate creative viewpoint. If they thought they’d get that from Shyamalan they had another think coming since his stock has significantly fallen since Signs.
Yeah, it did feel like a family outing and not a very strong one. This movie could have been a lot stronger if some changes were made to its story and replacing its main actor.
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