Starring: Jaden Smith, Will Smith, Zoë Kravitz
Kitai (J. Smith) is the son of a general (W. Smith) who he
aspires to follow into the military. However, Kitai’s emotions hold him back,
especially when it comes to the special skill of “Ghosting”; the practice of
not allowing yourself to feel fear, useful for fighting dangerous predators
that sense their prey through fear-based pheromones. When Kitai fails to become
a ranger, he goes with his father on a trip. However, trouble in an asteroid
field forces the ship to crash-land, leaving Kitai and his father, Cipher, to
fend for themselves on a now hostile and volatile Earth, which they left
generations ago.
After Earth does away with the twist conceit, such a
trademark in M. Night Shyamalan’s work, and instead focuses on a sci-fi tale of
survival. Alas, there are still problems.
The film looks very impressive, with Shyamalan boasting a flair for
visuals, bolstered by him using the great cinematographer Peter Schuschitzky
(whose credits include The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and The Empire
Strikes Back (1980)) and the film also handles action sequences strongly as
well. However, when the film slows down, it slows to a near crawl. The
relationship between real-life father/son duo Will and Jaden Smith forms a big
part of the story, but the distance between them (both physical and
metaphorical) is a major stumbling block in helping to give much emotional
weight to the characters. One of the other central themes of the film, that of
fear, is also misused. Bravery is treated solely as being the inability to be
afraid, whereas in reality, bravery often means doing something DESPITE being
afraid (not to mention foolishness is also often a reason for lack of fear).
There genuinely is an acorn of promise buried in After Earth. If the film
focused solely in Jaden Smith venturing through wilderness in complete isolation
and learns total self-reliance, this could’ve been something really special. It’s
just a shame that what problems the film does have, tend to be rather sizable.
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