Despite the negative comments, I saw After Earth when it opened and it was actually OK. Here's a rundown of what worked, what didn't and what shouldn't be in this film starring Will Smith and Jaden Smith directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
In this film, the father and son tandem plays a father and son tandem who gets stuck in the one place in the Universe that they shouldn't be in, and that's planet Earth. The movie's entire plot was conceived by Will Smith [who not only wrote the story and starred in it but also produced the flick]. The movie works for me to some extent. The father and son story is a relatable one. Disapproving fathers and overachieving sons looking for some appreciation from their fathers are not so rare in society today. IMHO, this is one of the things that Smith wants to talk about.
The visuals are OK. It's not groundbreaking as James Cameron's Avatar but serviceable. What irks me though is that the Ursa, the film's main villain/monster isn't as terrifying as it should. For a creature that see's fear in people, it's not as menacing after a good minute or so of getting a good look at it. Where's H.R.Giger when you need him. That and the ligers are horrible. I don't see why people hated the other creatures in this movie. Does it not strike them that the setting is an hyper evolved Earth thus it's just going to update any and all existing creatures on Earth.
A post-apocalyptic, primal world confronts Jaden Smith (“The Karate Kid”) and Will Smith (“Men in Black” trilogy) in Columbia Pictures' futuristic action adventure “After Earth.”
In the film, a crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home. A Dying Earth Kitai Raige lives on Nova Prime, mankind’s new home. One day, he will be – he must be – a great Ranger, like his father before him. Cypher Raige, Kitai’s father, is the Prime Commander of the United Ranger Corps and one of the greatest leaders in the history of Nova Prime. He is widely credited with saving the humans of Nova Prime from the planet’s fiercest alien threats: The Skrel and their vicious creations, the Ursa. Starting in the 21st Century, Earth’s environment became increasingly uninhabitable. Massive seismic activity caused frequent earthquakes of alarming intensity; tectonic plates shifted, creating enormous volcanoes and violent collisions between continents; clean water became scarce and the atmospheric composition changed, resulting in deadly temperature fluctuations and air too toxic for human lungs to breathe.
Columbia Pictures’ “After Earth,” the new futuristic thriller starring Will Smith and Jaden Smith, examines the themes of courage and fear in telling an astounding story of survival. “I’m fascinated by the question of why human beings fear the unknown,” says writer-director M. Night Shyamalan.
In the film, a crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.
“In our earliest days as cave-people, fear of the unknown was really important – fear could keep us safe. Fear could keep you alive,” explains Shyamalan. “ But now, we’ll fear a new job or a new relationship, because we don’t know what’s going to happen – and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Playing with that in a movie is a fun thing, and in this movie, it’s about a father teaching a son how to overcome that. It’s a wonderful lesson, because if you can learn how to control your fear of the unknown, you can do anything.”
