Starring: Jaden Smith and Will Smith
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Screenplay by: Gary Whitta and M. Night Shyamalan
So, we have another M. Night Shyamalan movie. This is the guy who brought us great films like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. He's also brought us pretty crappy movies like The Happening and The Last Airbender. After Earth is his latest. So how does this stack up with his other movies? It goes in the crappy section.
When I first saw the trailer for this film last Thanksgiving, I was very intrigued by the concept and it looked really cool. It's 1000 years after humans have devastated Earth so much that they needed to evacuate the planet to a satellite planet called Nova Prime. There are creatures that live there that feed off of people's fear and Cypher Raige (Will Smith) is so fearless that he's become a legendary commander. In this story, he and his son Kitai (Jaden Smith) embark on a journey to a quarantined planet (and one of these fear feeding creatures is on board). When their ship crash lands on the planet (which we find right away is Earth), Cypher and Kitai are the only survivors. Cypher has two broken legs and can't move, so it's up to Kitai to retrieve the emergency beacon 100 km from the wreckage. Earth is a crazy world where everything tries to kill humans. Cypher will guide Kitai all the way by way of a communication device so he doesn't have to leave the ship. Will Kitai be able to get both of them rescued?
The trailer mentions an intriguing concept about fear being a choice, a product of thoughts one creates based on stimuli that create these thoughts. This is a large part of Kitai's journey through the forest and various challenges he faces. I think it's a cool concept, and one that people can actually learn from, but in context with the film, it's just a complication to the story that the film doesn't need. This is a story about survival. When you're fighting for your life, are you really going to find time to think of fear as a choice? Suddenly a natural instinct is a choice and it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The film could easily have cut this whole concept out and it may have been a slightly better film, but it's doomed anyway.
Jaden Smith delivers a less than great performance and this is clearly not the right role for Will Smith either. He's a fantastic actor, but his role in After Earth doesn't show it very well.
The special effects for the most part are good, but they're not totally amazing. This isn't a particularly beautiful movie cinematically. The dialogue is a little strange in some scenes and doesn't always make a whole lot of sense. The film as a whole isn't very interesting and sucks at keeping our attention throughout it. It's one of the few film where I wondered why it was still on during some scenes.
I had hoped that After Earth would revive M. Night Shyamalan's reputation as a good filmmaker and that this film would actually be really good. But I had hoped that with a few of his other recent films and got the same answer that I got from this film. He's got so many bugs in his movies that they aren't very good and it's going to take a long time for Shyamalan to redeem himself as a reputable filmmaker, if he still can and if people still believe he's capable of creating works whose quality is comparable to that of The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable. Perhaps if he brings back Bruce Willis into his cast, he can. But After Earth fails to be a good film.
After Earth is the second WORST film I've seen so far in 2013. I give it an F.
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Screenplay by: Gary Whitta and M. Night Shyamalan
So, we have another M. Night Shyamalan movie. This is the guy who brought us great films like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. He's also brought us pretty crappy movies like The Happening and The Last Airbender. After Earth is his latest. So how does this stack up with his other movies? It goes in the crappy section.
When I first saw the trailer for this film last Thanksgiving, I was very intrigued by the concept and it looked really cool. It's 1000 years after humans have devastated Earth so much that they needed to evacuate the planet to a satellite planet called Nova Prime. There are creatures that live there that feed off of people's fear and Cypher Raige (Will Smith) is so fearless that he's become a legendary commander. In this story, he and his son Kitai (Jaden Smith) embark on a journey to a quarantined planet (and one of these fear feeding creatures is on board). When their ship crash lands on the planet (which we find right away is Earth), Cypher and Kitai are the only survivors. Cypher has two broken legs and can't move, so it's up to Kitai to retrieve the emergency beacon 100 km from the wreckage. Earth is a crazy world where everything tries to kill humans. Cypher will guide Kitai all the way by way of a communication device so he doesn't have to leave the ship. Will Kitai be able to get both of them rescued?
The trailer mentions an intriguing concept about fear being a choice, a product of thoughts one creates based on stimuli that create these thoughts. This is a large part of Kitai's journey through the forest and various challenges he faces. I think it's a cool concept, and one that people can actually learn from, but in context with the film, it's just a complication to the story that the film doesn't need. This is a story about survival. When you're fighting for your life, are you really going to find time to think of fear as a choice? Suddenly a natural instinct is a choice and it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The film could easily have cut this whole concept out and it may have been a slightly better film, but it's doomed anyway.
Jaden Smith delivers a less than great performance and this is clearly not the right role for Will Smith either. He's a fantastic actor, but his role in After Earth doesn't show it very well.
The special effects for the most part are good, but they're not totally amazing. This isn't a particularly beautiful movie cinematically. The dialogue is a little strange in some scenes and doesn't always make a whole lot of sense. The film as a whole isn't very interesting and sucks at keeping our attention throughout it. It's one of the few film where I wondered why it was still on during some scenes.
I had hoped that After Earth would revive M. Night Shyamalan's reputation as a good filmmaker and that this film would actually be really good. But I had hoped that with a few of his other recent films and got the same answer that I got from this film. He's got so many bugs in his movies that they aren't very good and it's going to take a long time for Shyamalan to redeem himself as a reputable filmmaker, if he still can and if people still believe he's capable of creating works whose quality is comparable to that of The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable. Perhaps if he brings back Bruce Willis into his cast, he can. But After Earth fails to be a good film.
After Earth is the second WORST film I've seen so far in 2013. I give it an F.
Comments
Post a Comment