Few names are as detested in the film industry as M. Night Shyamalan. Sure, “The Sixth Sense”, “Unbreakable” and “Signs” were all superb filmmaking, but “The Village”, despite a promising premise, fell flat in it’s 3rd act, and three atrocious films in a row (“Lady In The Water”, “The Happening”, “The Last Airbender”) all showed how the mighty had fallen.
Perhaps with Will Smith and his most high concept idea in ages, a glimmer of Shyamalan’s potential could be reinstated. How rich. “After Earth” is an abysmal piece of cinema, one whose very existence is infuriating on how much it does wrong with everything: story, directing, acting, visual effects; you name it, this film likely has some of the worst of it ever produced for the silver screen.
Cypher Raige (Will Smith) is a legend among the remnants of humanity, his glorious combat experience making him an idol for all; one of those who look up to him is his son Kitai (Jaden Smith). The two have an estranged relationship, but they decide to get to know each other better on one of Cypher’s missions; unfortunately, an asteroid shower makes it all go haywire and they wind up stranded on a very dangerous planet: Earth. If the two ever want to have any hope of ever leaving this planet, they’ll have to work together and Kitai must overcome his fears and become a hero like his father.
I don’t know why M. Night Shyamalan feels the urgent need to write his own scripts for all of his movies; it just makes the film jumbled and confused, not to mention populated with enough horrible dialogue to make even the most lenient moviegoer cringe in horror. Admittedly, the screenplay does deliver one or two funny lines, but mostly this is a landscape of character interactions and conversations that would likely make someone like David O. Russell laugh in how deficient they are.
One of my biggest irritations with the screenplay is it’s inconsistency; mainly, the intelligence of the creatures on Earth seem to fluctuate as much as it’s weather. Sometimes, they’re just primal beasts with not a thing on their mind. Yet, other times in the movie they suddenly become hyper intelligent, for no other reason than the script calls for it. For some reason, I found this infuriating and a signal that these people involved in this production never really gave too much thought into the world they were trying to create.
It doesn’t help that, instead of recalling sci-fi films by Ridley Scott and James Cameron, I found the film to be more reminiscent of B-Movie king Roger Corman’s output from the 70’s. The small cast, lack of actual threatening antagonistic creatures and small, contained indoor sets (although, to the film’s credit, the outdoor scenes on Earth are gorgeous). Honestly, the movie looks super cheap and unprofessional, to the point where I wondered how a mega-star (not to mention mega-expensive) like Will Smith was in this. None of those kind of things would matter if the script was superb, but it’s a piece of garbage. Frankly, the movie’s about on the same level as those ultra-cheesy movies that air on SyfFy, though lacking their iconic sense of fun.
Jaden Smith did alright in the great “The Karate Kid” remake from three years ago (has it already been three years? Man, I’m getting old.) But I’m not sure he’s actually a good actor, he doesn’t get a whole lot of range to show and he’s actually a bit bland, especially in the action sequences where he doesn’t seem to express much emotion. Will Smith gets little to do, mainly providing exposition and a confused accent. Due to how horrible Shyamalan is as a director, I’m willing to chalk up their subpar acting to him, though I felt they both were subpar in acting ability all things considered.
Muddled plotting, stunningly bad acting, unintentionally hilarious dramatic scenes; “After Earth” has everything you want in terms of a bad movie. It’s failures are so enormous and grand that it will likely make you question Will Smith’s sanity for agreeing to this trash. If it weren’t for an intriguing alien villain (and even he falls prey to the scripts inconsistency), this thing would likely reach a “Battlefield: Earth” level of atrociousness. As it is, “After Earth” settles for just being plain ol’ bad filmmaking that gives the worst director working in Hollywood today more garbage to put on his resume.
