After Earth (2013)

After Earth Review

All Jaden and no charisma and makes After Earth a dull movie.

(Source: Collider)

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Running Time: 100 minutes
Stubs Rating: 0.5/5

Pride always comes before a fall and there are many classic examples of great people who have suffer massive setbacks for their arrogance or overconfident. Great people like Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods and so on and so forth. However, the name M. Night Shyamalan always instantly crosses my mind as he somehow miraculously fit the proverb perfectly. And he definitely took a big and deep fall since Signs.

Before those lousy movies produced and directed by Shyamalan, there were great movies such as The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Now, we have to deal with several atrocious entries to his repertoire like Lady in the Water, The Happening and the god-awful The Last Airbender.

And that son is how you should act. (Source: Collider)

Even moviegoers nowadays cannot seem to take his films seriously but rather treat his films as comedy gold. This writer is truly hoping that Mr. Shyamalan would revert back to his good ol’ glory days by producing and directing great films with amazing twists.

With his ‘proudest’ and latest entry, director M. Night Shyamalan proudly presents After Earth, the latest sci-fi mumbo-jumbo that features the Smiths that hopefully would revive his doom career. However, the latest flick is nowhere near The Sixth Sense and its multiple flaws just put Shyamalan more into the back seat.

Take a knee cadet even there is a volcano behind you. (Source: Collider)

This time around, After Earth mainly focuses on the unstable relationship between General Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) as dark pasts and miscommunication damages their father-son relationship. However, both father and son have to work together despite their differences as they crash landed on a much-evolved planet Earth and Kitai have to embark on a dangerous journey to call for help and save his dying father.

This is would be the second time Will and Jaden Smith collaborated as they have previously worked on the inspiring The Pursuit of Happyness. This time around, the Smiths could not work their magic and they did not have the great chemistry as they were bogged down with laughable dialogues and wooden acting along with uncharismatic characters.

"Why so emotionless? Is it because of me?" (Source: Collider)

Plus, the lack of solid action sequences for this oddly slow-paced movie will definitely bore the viewers and put them to dreamland. Instead, M. Night Shyamalan thought the ‘charismatic’ Jaden Smith would have the ability to lead the movie with minor action sequences. How dead wrong was he.

On a side note, even M. Night Shyamalan had a safety precaution as he probably knew it by now then that his name alone would not garnered much in the box office. He even excluded his own name in the promotional posters and trailer just not to spark negative buzz about the film.

Looking cool as the Son in Black. (Source: Collider)

Nonetheless, the only positive thing that salvaged this atrocious movie is the passable visual effects that at least make After Earth a watchable sci-fi movie.

Winner of several Razzie awards including Worst Actor (Jaden Smith), Worst Supporting Actor (Will Smith) and Worst Screen Combo, After Earth is just another boring and sad entry for M. Night Shyamalan’s filmography. After Earth is both dull and forgettable in many ways plus with uninspiring and uncharismatic performances from both Jaden and Will Smith. I just hope that M. Night Shyamalan could turn things around for his next big blockbuster, hopefully.