After Earth is the story of the ultimate family sacrifice – facing death alone, defying convention and braving fierce danger to promote your untalented child at all costs. It’s rumored that Will Smith produced said film as a star-making vehicle to promote his son, Jaden. Let’s start there – After Earth will not make Jaden Smith a star. But it probably won’t ruin his career, either. Not by itself. And there are worse reasons to make a film. The desire to watch a benevolent man get butchered for two hours comes to mind. So, while the reason ain’t exactly, “curing cancer,” I’ll give it a pass and evaluate After Earth on its merits.
This is the part of the review where I tell you it hasn’t got any merits. Shame is, stupid as this film is and painfully bland its hero, After Earth really wasn’t that bad. Yes, I am disappointed, especially since another rumor places Scientology behind the screenplay — but as with Battlefield Earth, if there is any distinguishable material here that would turn somebody into a Scientologist, I’ll read Dianetics cover-to-cover.
We are in the semi-distant future. Earth is no longer human-friendly and earthlings now all live on a distant planet that looks a lot like Arizona. Here, they battle ursas which prove a major pain-in-the-ass. These beasts look a little like replica versions of the creature from Cloverfield. All remaining humans, it would appear, have one of two professions in outerspace Arizona: soldier or miner. Teen Kitai (Jaden, and I kept hearing this name as “Qatar”) is not yet ready to be a ranger, for he hasn’t yet learned to overcome fear. Well, that and he doesn’t listen to anybody which severely dilutes any “overcoming fear” message the film might be trying to push. Ursae are blind, but sense fear pheromones. Hence, they only attack the afraid. You want to laugh, but it’s a movie; you can’t do so in the theater. Anyhoo, Jaden’s real life dad is also his film dad. Awwww. Isn’t that … appropriate. This time out, the French Prince ain’t got room for emotions. He is a legendary 
killer of ursae because he don’t feel nothin’. I swear, in this film, Will seems intent on doing his best impression of Easter Island.
The father/son team get stranded alone on Earth, now quarantined and off-limits to humans. Dad has a broken leg, so Qatar has to retrieve the homing beacon 100 K away through beast-infested wilderness and critic-infested theaters. And Jaden ain’t the easiest kid to love. We are told, “everything on this planet has evolved to kill human beings.” Really? Um … why? Human beings no longer inhabit the planet. From the looks of it, they stopped years ago. And geez, evolution works fast in your world, don’t it? Predatory pack baboons, lethal leeches, eagles the size of Buicks and not a sign of the human remains anywhere … are you sure this is Earth? Qatar meets a baboon and immediately hits it with a rock. Then thirty more baboons show up. Angry. Good call, cadet.
After Earth is like that: Mildly likeable kid constantly making questionable survival choices. This is prefaced by daddy stoneface saying, “every decision you make is life or death.” Yeah, I’m gonna have to call, “bullshit” on that one, Frenchie.
The biggest problem with After Earth is not Jaden but Will Smith. It’s not that Will’s performance is bad – which is quite a relief given some of the “acting” M. Night Shyamalan has directed of late (you think Jaden is bad? Really? Go see The Happening or Last Airbender) – Will Smith here isn’t bad, just one-dimensional. And the one-dimension is “not pleasant.” Will is stoic, gruff, impassive and intolerant and he reminds us with every shot. I spent the first half of the film wondering how a guy like that could father a kid in the first place: “that was not unpleasurable, dear. You’re dismissed.” I was also rooting for the dad to bend to emotion rather than the kid bending to stoicism. Yes, the cadet has learned survival, but at what cost? $8 at my theater.
Cadet Kitai faces dangers immense
In frustration he often vents
Emotions must go
To save dad, you know
‘Tis a shame this doesn’t make any sense
Rated PG-13, 100 Minutes
D: M. Night Shyamalan
W: Gary Whitta, M. Night Shyamalan
Genre: Our screwed future
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Survivalists
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Anti-nepotists
