A film review by Craig J. Koban June 5, 2013 |
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AFTER EARTH
Will Smith as Cypher / Jaden Smith as Kitai / Sophie Okonedo as Faia Raige / Zoe Kravitz as Senshi Raige Directed by M. Night Shyamalan / Written by Shyamalan and Gary Whitta, from a story by Will Smith |
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Alas, that’s not really saying very much, seeing as I have graded the last four films on his resume with a dreaded one star (or under) rating. AFTER EARTH
most certainly doesn't achieve the wretched level of soul-crushing
awfulness that Shyamalan’s last film THE
LAST AIRBENDER dubiously achieved, but it’s nonetheless yet
another mediocre blip on his recent career, one that began with so much
unqualified promise all those years ago with THE SIXTH SENSE, UNBREAKABLE,
and SIGNS. A man that was
once considered an heir apparent to Hitchcock and Spielberg is now been regrettably
downgraded to a punch line in serious film circles. AFTER
EARTH may be considered Shyamalan’s first pure science fiction film,
although some of his past films have contained elements of otherworldly
fantasy. Interestingly,
it’s not solely the product of his imagination, but rather of his
leading star, Will Smith (receiving story credit here, which Shyamalan and THE
BOOK OF ELI writer, Gary Whitta, adapted into a screenplay). I guess that one could aptly label AFTER EARTH as a pure
work-for-hire effort for the once critically acclaimed director; his
unique command of visuals and mood are kind of AWOL, not to mention that
the Shyamalanian third act plot twists are nowhere to be had.
Interestingly, his name alone was used in the past to help sell each
one of his films, but now it's been completely erased from
all forms of advertising for AFTER EARTH.
Question: why hire a director that you know you’re going to
sheepishly subvert later in the marketing push?
Odd, indeed. The
opening of AFTER EARTH sets the tone for perhaps more awkward storytelling
momentum to come. Much like 1984's DUNE, the film begins with a voiceover narration – which comes
after the film rather chaotically plunges us into what appears to be a
later scene in the story – that reveals
what has happened to the Earth in the distant past, what has become of humanity
1000 years
in the future, and the mysterious power of “ghosting” that certain
military men possess, which makes them – wait for it - invisible to alien
monsters that can only see their prey when they are afraid.
It’s never fully explained why these creatures – "Ursas"
(criminally indistinct looking CGI baddies) – are blind to courageous
warriors. Maybe they should
get their eyes checked by an intergalactic veterinarian.
As
silly as this opening section is, it attempts a fool’s errand of trying
to encapsulate a millennia of history in one hastily cobbled together few
minutes, which just leaves viewers disoriented.
What you need to know is this: Earth was laid to relative
ecological waste in the past, which left humanity fleeing it and seeking
out a new home on Nova Prime (which looks a lot like a vast Arizona
desert, which further leaves me asking more questions about how food is cultivated
and grown there, but never mind). 1000
years in the future mankind is thriving on their new home world, even if
those pesky Ursas are making life difficult for colonists. One lauded military general, Cypher Kaige (Will Smith) is an
iconic figure with the power of the Force…er…make that ghosting
on his
side, which makes his son, Kitai (Jaden Smith, son of Will), all the more
eager to make his papa proud. In
an effort to bond more, Cypher and his son embark on a star trek into the
cosmos, but on their supposedly routine flight their ship encounters an
asteroid field, gets bumped off course, and crash lands of a “Class-1”
(meaning "bad") quarantined planet that is explicitly labeled as a
do-not-land-there-ever body. The
planet, of course, is Earth, and in the crash – which has killed
everyone else – Cypher suffers two horrifically broken legs that makes traveling
for him impossible. Kitai,
on the other hand, emerges relatively unscathed, which forces Cypher to
takes drastic steps: he convinces his son to hike 100 kilometers across unknown
terrain to rescue the ship's beacon and call for help.
There are some major problems, though, with this plan: Kitai was
recently rejected by Cypher’s own Ranger Corps, which leaves him feeling
worthless and vulnerable, not to mention that one of those fear-hungry
Ursas – which was on board and survived the crash – is out in the
Earth’s wild looking to pounce on Kitai at a moment’s notice. As
for positives of AFTER EARTH I will say this: It is, at times, visual rich
and lavish, even when some unpardonably rushed and half-hearted CGI
creature rendering (especially with the strange futuristic animals that
reside on Earth) appear unfinished and crude.
I liked the look of the Nova Prime cityscapes and especially
Cypher’s ship, which seems to have both a strangely organic and
mechanical appearance. Then
there is the ultra-nifty survival suit that Kitai dons while on his
dangerous mission, which actually changes color when a ravenous predator
is near or
dangerous environmental conditions are eminent. He also sports a long handled instrument that looks
suspiciously like a crude lightsaber hilt that can spring out different
sharp metal instruments from of both ends. Yet,
this is really where my fascination with the film dies.
As far as outdoor wilderness survival thrillers/father and son
coming-of-age stories go, AFTER EARTH is sinfully dull and lacking in any
semblance of dramatic urgency or tension.
This is made more apparent by just how emotionally vacant and
internalized the characters are here.
Will Smith has a thousand watt smile and has always been one of the
most easy-going and charismatic leading men of the movies, but here he’s
reduced to spending 75 per cent of the film sick, injured, and
gurney-ridden, dryly dispatching orders to his son via a high tech comlink.
Even worse is that Smith and his son speak in an inanely peculiar
and inexplicable dialect throughout the film that gets almost more giggle
inducing by the minute. Making
Smith the star of your film and then having him play his role with a
Vulcan-like sternness is a serious misstep. He has never been so egregiously void of humor and charm as
he is here. He kind of just
listlessly occupies the screen. Smith
has been criticized for overt nepotism in his creative choices in the
film, which I understand, but I can also see
why he would want to give his son the lion’s share of the film to carry
and help make him a star. In defense
of Jaden Smith, he does have to perform opposite of manufactured
creatures for the most part and does have to carry AFTER EARTH’s action,
but he emerges less as a figure of rooting interest (as he did in the THE
KARATE KID remake) and more of an obtrusively whining nuisance in
the film. His personal
journey of going from a deeply unsure of himself lad prone to outbursts of
tears to a fearless warrior during his long hike on Earth lacks even
modest credibility. By the time he has that unavoidable confrontation with the
Ursa you find yourself not so much cheering him on to victory as you are
checking your watch out of anxiety. AFTER
EARTH is not an epic misfire on par with Shyamalan’s last several
efforts, but it still ploddingly wallows in rookie filmmaking unevenness
and does very little to command our attention (that, and at 100 minutes,
the film feels unmercifully long). Both
Smiths (especially the elder) are emotionless voids that are borderline
impenetrable throughout the story, and Shyamalan – once a master of
hair-raising tension – fails to create even a morsel of real intrigue
here. The man who gave us THE
SIXTH SENSE is nowhere to be found in AFTER EARTH; he seems to have been replaced by
a Shyamalan clone that’s just happy to have a job and pay check. |
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