After Earth (FILM REVIEW)
After Earth
Film Review
by Kam Williams
Father and Son Crash-Land on Earth in Campy Sci-Fi Saga
In recent years, the name M. Night
Shyamalan has become synonymous with mediocre movies with a humdinger of a twist
tacked on at the very end. Meanwhile, Will Smith has been so successful as the perennial
star of a string of summer blockbusters, that he’s been crowned “Mr. July.”
Thus, when the two former Philadelphians
decide to collaborate on a film project, something ostensibly has to give. Will
Shyamalan stem his decade-long decline or will Will’s winning streak come to an
abrupt end?
Looking a little more like a
Shyamalan than a Smith production, this cheapo, post-apocalyptic adventure suffers
from a combination of miscasting and cheesy special f/x (reminiscent of Lost in
Space, the Sixties TV series). Consequently, After Earth pales in comparison with
a couple of other sci-fi pictures presently in theaters, specifically, Star Trek
12 and Iron Man 3.
At least this futuristic, Shyamalan
offering doesn’t turn on rabbit-out-a-hat resolution. In fact, quite to the contrary,
the predictable ending of this stranded and I want to go home saga is an
exercise in the obvious established by the premise.
As for the acting, Will Smith is
normally good for a little comic relief even in his dramatic outings. Here,
however, that trademark flair for the flamboyant he regularly exhibited on TV
as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is nowhere in sight.
Instead, he displays a sober
stoicism from start to finish as General Cypher Raige, the forbidding father of
Kitai (Jaden Smith), an aspiring ranger eager to prove his worth as a soldier.
He gets his chance when they are the only survivors of an intergalactic
expedition crash-landing on Earth, a planet abandoned by humanity a millennium
earlier.
With the General wounded and the
spaceship crippled, it is up to Kitai to embark on a hundred-kilometer trip through
the jungle alone to retrieve the emergency beacon from the detached tail
section. This proves to be no mean feat, since the forest is covered with a
variety of voracious, man-eating creatures.
Will Smith proceeds to spend the
balance of the movie sitting in the damaged fuselage surrounded by unspooled reams
of what looks like toilet paper. Unbudgeted scenery aside, this film is really designed
as a vehicle for his real-life son, Jaden, whose performance in front of the
blue screen is tarnished a tad by a high-pitched voice yet to crack.
They say, there comes a time in
every black comedian’s career when he’s asked to put on a dress. Well, it seems
the same can be said about appearing in a campy sci-fi as demonstrated by Billy
Cosby in Leonard Part 6, Eddie Murphy in The Adventures of Pluto Nash and John
Witherspoon in Cosmic Slop.
A simplistic, father-son morality
play strictly for little kids and diehard Will and Jaden Smith fans. Destined
to be added to the pantheon of inadvertently-funny blaxploitation flicks with a
devoted cult following.
Good (2
stars)
PG-13 for action violence and disturbing images
Running time: 100 minutes
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
To see a trailer for After
Earth, visit:
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