After Earth (2013)

So much average

Purely Joyful Movie!

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I don't like the Smiths. I didn't want to like this film and I did.There are plot holes (its sci-fi - go figure!) The characters are emotionally leaden (they play a career army Dad and his emotionally repressed son - shock!). And, this isn't Shakespeare.You're not getting an Oscar winner here, but as far as action films go it's fair. Neither Smith is required to provide much emotion - the point is that Smith Snr has sadly drilled his son to an inch of his life in order to meet expectations. He yearns for acceptance, but is denied it by his cold father, doubly tragic due to the family being devastingly killed by ruthless aliens. Being stranded on Earth gives Smith Jnr the opportunities to change this narrative and finally be accepted.The premise is a bit dodgy, but the film is well presented. I can't say that Jayden is a bad actor, but the nepotism has never looked good.

I love this movie. I feel the razor nominations/awards are unfair.

Not a great film but not a bad one either. So let's deal with the negative stuff first. It is a Sci-Fi film with some major plot holes, but I cam live with that, since I feel that Sci-Fi is mostly glorified fairy stories anyway. The main problem is structural and was brought about from the onset of making this movie. It is based on a 'story' by Will Smith, with him and his son playing the main characters and that is where the main problem lies, this is obviously a film driven by Will Smith's star power to enable his son to get a leg up into movie stardom. So the main roles has the 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air' trying to be an extreme iceman and a rather whiny, weedy boy playing an iceman in waiting. This was a tough ask for me. Will was doing best to be all stoic and militaristic which left Jaden Smith to do most of the acting, and to be the emotional centre of the film. And although Jaden is acting his little socks off, I can't help feeling of the thousands of young actors who would have much more believable in this role. So this film had a weak centre simply due to casting, but then this was always going to be the case here.OK so now to the good points. This is one of those films that looks like it's giving us that old movie cliché where a hero is created out of extreme adversity and it does that, but it is being deliberately undercut by the effect this macho individualistic behaviour has upon a family dynamic. This gave the film it's heart and kept me watching it and caring about the characters right to the end.Another key moment that kept the impetus going for me was the incident with the condor which echoed the main theme of 'family' in this film. It was a lovely moment, but I could see it might be difficult for others, because it seemed thematically and ecologically it didn't belong in this film. The back drop scenario of this film follows the depressing trope of - Space as a war zone for empires, being populated with rather extreme creatures. Space is a wonderful blank canvas of ignorance where you can create good old fashioned monsters, and although I enjoy watching a good monster, I don't believe in these movie space monsters. I find it hard to imagine a clear ecology for them and I personally have problems with Hollywood's desire to pedal these rather dubious Darwinist scenarios. So this film was also saved for me by the life affirming message that the condor's behaviour symbolised and which undercut the 'brutal universe' trope. This film also had a hint of mysticism which suited me. Oh, and all those M Night Shyamalan shouters and haters....Get a life !

After Earth is the final proof (as if more was needed after the critical receptions of The Happening and The Last Airbender) that director M. Night Shyamalan should stay away from Sci-Fi and stick with the horror/thriller genre, which he later goes back to and enjoyed a kind of second coming of his career with The Visit and this year's Split.After Earth is also the film that ended Will Smith's incredible streak of 100M domestic grossers (Seven Pounds not counting since it was a mid-level drama production and was never meant to be as commercially appealing as his other films during those years) that included such hits as MIB2, Hitch, Hancock and I Am Legend. As a Sci-Fi summer tentpole with a $130 million production budget, the studio was expecting blockbuster numbers and they must have felt that it was impossible for a Will Smith star vehicle to flop, but After Earth did it, in spectacular fashion. The film is also Will Smith's first truly bad film in a long, long time.How did this happen? Many other reviewers have already explained the reasons better than I will be able to. This was a blatant effort on Will Smith's part to launch his son's own career as a respectable star and a box office draw, a foolish attempt with hindsight but perhaps it shouldn't have been that difficult to see at the time either. Jayden Smith was not one of the main reasons for The Karate Kid's success, and with the physique and voice of a teenager in 2012-13, he was anything but star material and shouldn't be anything more than a minor support character.Nepotism can get you roles, but it can't get you interest or approval from the audience. How many people bought tickets to see After Earth expecting 1 hour of Will Smith and perhaps 30mins of Jayden as daddy's sidekick, and ends up hugely disappointed (not counting the film's obvious lack of quality for now), even annoyed, because what they got was 1 hour of Jayden who just can't act, and whose delivery of lines are amateurish at best, and with maybe 20 minutes of Will Smith sitting still and doing nothing? I suspect a lot.Shyamalan will also need to share a big part of the blame for this film, as both the story and the script are terrible, and the directing efforts are nowhere to be seen (after all, you can't really make a wood stick aka Jayden Smith come alive). I hope he doesn't make more Sci-Fi in future, because that genre's clearly not where his talent lies and he really should know that by now.