Often, a great movie will have a great takeaway message that it leaves the audience with. Lawrence of Arabia showed us that one man, in the right time, could make a difference. The Godfather demonstrated to audiences that no man is truly incorruptible. And, continuing this chain of great films, After Earth gives us the definitive message that Jaden Smith will never be a successful actor. This film is an ill-conceived attempt to give him a moment in the spotlight so that he can prove himself to be just as good as his father (Will Smith), but unfortunately it fails to impress. After the perfectly serviceable performance he gave in The Karate Kid, he absolutely destroys any hope he ever had of becoming a real actor here.
There’s not much to say about After Earth, because there’s absolutely nothing to it. The film is about a future in which humans have been chased from planet to planet by some kind of alien threat. Will Smith plays General Cypher Raige, the military leader who saves them in numerous battles from the alien menace, and also just so happens to have the most ridiculously badass name of all time. Seriously, if you name your kid “Cypher Raige,” what are the chances that he’ll grow up to be a melon farmer or something? It’s like naming your kid “Speed Racer.” Jesus.
Anyway, Mr. and Mrs. Raige have a kid, played by Jaden Smith. Jaden is trying to become a ranger just like his father, but he is constantly being held back in life by his poor acting skills and weird, lisping voice-over. So the two of them decide to spend some father-son time and go for a ride. Then their ship is hit by an asteroid, and they find themselves stranded on Earth. Which they could have easily predicted if they had bothered to read the title of the movie.
It’s impossible to accurately judge this movie’s script, as a good 95% of it is just generic sci-fi mumbo-jumbo. “Gravitons could be a precursor to mass expansion.” “But mass expansion is a one in a million chance!” Anyone who can decipher that meaningless trite shall be crowned King of England!!! In fact, this entire movie is just bland science fiction crap. It is a pointless and derivative movie that has been done many times before, and far better than this. All of the special effects look like second-rate Avatar CGI, and none of the so-called ‘science’ makes any sense. Case in point: Earth completely freezes over every night, right? So how is there still foliage alive? The forests would have completely died off by now! Fuck this movie...
There is virtually no character development in this entire thing. Will Smith’s performance consists of glaring, looking menacing, and staring angrily. His tough-guy military dad persona gets old really quick, leaving it to his son to carry the entire film. Unfortunately, he is absolutely incapable of doing this. He has a strange speech pattern in which he slurs his words and sounds like he’s frustrated all the time. It doesn’t help him much that his lines suck, though-- “My suit’s turning black. I like it, but I think it’s something bad.” It’s almost as if nobody bothered to proofread this thing at all.
Not only did this set back Will Smith’s career and greatly damage his son’s, it also killed any hope for M. Night Shyamalan to ever direct a movie again. This director used to be good, but in reality, all he’s really given us is one mediocre movie followed by an assload of terrible ones, from a disaster movie in which trees emit a gas that makes people kill themselves (The Happening) to a live-action adaptation of a beloved kid’s film that didn’t even bother to get the character’s names and races right (The Last Airbender). Personally, I never even cared for his breakout movie, The Sixth Sense, and I see this slow disintegration of his career as inevitable. Others, however, are far more disappointed, but seeing as I didn’t expect anything from this movie, I don’t hate it with a passion like some do.
Final Score for After Earth: 1/10 stars. Yeah, this sucks. From wooden characters to horrible plot points, this movie is one of the worst of the year, and is the poster boy for “Anus of Cinema.” I found it unbelievable that Will Smith had literally no screen chemistry with his own son, but maybe this is what life is like in the Smith household in the real world. A controlling father dedicated to what he does for a living, and trying his hardest to get his son to follow in his footsteps. Naaaaah, that’s ridiculous...
No comments:
Post a Comment