AFTER EARTH

A thousand years ago, after ruining the planet, the human race abandoned Earth. Nova Prime is their new home world where mankind now faces a new enemy, the original inhabitants of that planet. General Cypher Raige (Will Smith) has fought in many battles but the greatest battle he faces is connecting with his son Kitai (Jaden Smith). The estranged father decides to take his son on a space excursion, but their spaceship is bombarded by an asteroid field forcing the ship to crash on a now unfamiliar Earth. The crash landing tears the ship in half, breaks Cypher’s leg and damages the homing beacon. The only way off the planet is for Kitai to trek 100 kilometers through a hostile terrain and activate the other beacon located in the tail of the ship.

                               

Similarly to Oblivion (2013) this film’s back-story is much more interesting than the actual story we are shown. The moment the father told his son that their lives depend on getting the other rescue beacon was the exact moment the entire story unraveled in my mind. After that point, I just tried getting through one unexciting action scene after the other. The core of the story revolves around the father/son dynamic but ironically this real life father/son duo don’t display an ounce of on-screen chemistry. The back-story alone made me despise this movie’s human race. These humans destroy their own world; illegally migrate to another planet and then start a war with the indigenous people. The back-story is comparable to the early history of America and the main story is absolutely predictable and uninspiring.

What’s worse than this movie’s plot? The Acting! Hollywood Nepotism rears its ugly head as Will Smith produces a piece of junk just so that his son can extend his acting resume. Jaden Smith is undoubtedly the most incompetent child actor working in Hollywood today. He has no articulation during the Voice-Over scene and absolutely no emotion during every other scene. Even his diction sounds like a ghetto rapper reciting Shakespeare. Nearly half the film is of Kitai running and this gets tedious quite quickly. Will Smith, who gradually honed his acting skills, forgets all his abilities by playing Cypher as a one-dimensional character. The ‘pig headed military man’ has become such a cliché and Will Smith simply reaffirms the stereotype. Both father and son lack substance in their performances and every other actor is underused.

M. Night Shyamalan crashed this ship before it took off. This director has fallen from the highest peaks of quality filmmaking to the lowest caverns of flop-making. The entire film should have taken place on Nova Prime, the aliens who created the Ursa should have been the main villain and the main character of the film should have been the father and not the son. Watching Cypher Raige ‘ghosting’ for the very first time would have been more exciting than hearing about it in voice-over. Instead of seeing numerous alien monsters terrorizing humans, we are shown baboons, tigers and a bird trying to make lunch out of Kitai. Shyamalan’s earlier films blew me away but his last four films just blows. But in this instance Shyamalan is merely an overpriced director-for-hire, so only a fragment of blame should be placed on him. The main culprit responsible for making such a crappy film is Will ‘Daddy Warbucks’ Smith. After Earth is a narcissistic project of generational proportions. Will Smith came up with the story and produced it with the delusion that is son could actually carry the film. Ironically for the Smiths, this movie only magnifies how untalented Jaden is as an actor. Jaden needs a career change and Will needs to focus on his own career.

Rating: 2/10

S. V. Fernando