After Earth

AFTER EARTH

Review by John Wood

When I was ten years old I wanted a Spice Girls CD. Years later I would realise that gift choice was quite an odd request. However come Christmas I open up the CD shaped gift and inside it was the soundtrack to ‘The Lion King’ (a MUCH better choice in retrospect, thanks Mum). But the point is, it wasn’t what I wanted. This is a traditional Christmas story.

Now a traditional Will Smith Christmas story is Willow Smith asking ‘Can I sing about my hair?’ or Jaden Smith asking ‘Can I star in a Sci-fi summer blockbuster?’ It is pretty hard to disappoint with such big presents. However what Will forgot to add was that the sci-fi would be directed by rapidly declining skills, respect and killer of the The Last Airbender film franchise, M. Night Shyamalan.

Not pictured: Interest.

Yep, this review will not be kind.

The story follows Kitai a young and self-righteous idiot, on the home planet of Nova Prime after Earth was evacuated, who tries to be a soldier just like his dad Cypher. A character played by his real life father Will Smith in a performance that seems like he is purposely trying to be worse than his son, something that unfortunately he still fails at. After hearing he wasn't accepted as a soldier and by the wishes of his wife, Cypher takes Kitai with him on his final mission. The trip there is terrible and they crash land on, you guessed it, Earth, and even though there is many people on the ship only the two of them survive.

So what could have been a great opportunity for Will and Jaden to adventure together begins…

Except it doesn’t. Cypher breaks both legs, so unfortunately he is placed behind a table for the entire film while Kitai tries to find a rescue beacon placed in the other half of the ship one hundred kilometres away. What follows is mediocre action beat followed by mediocre action beat with some truly terrible monologues that outstays it’s welcome.

'I will stay here son, while you go out and be a star'

The movie has some terrible CGI and some purely awful plot devices, the only positive I have for the film is that it at least didn't torture the audience for long, it actually seemed shorter than what it was. But maybe that’s because I actually felt like I was sleeping through it.

M. Night Shyamalan cements himself as a director with lost potential, it's getting harder to remember his original films that put him on the map. Maybe he just needs to go away for a few years, maybe a decade, find his groove and come back and surprise us.

In the film there is a quote that Cypher says to his son, ‘Danger is real, fear is a choice’.

Fearing this movie is indeed a choice, but trust me on this, the danger of sitting through the year’s worse is real.

RATING: DEAD ON ARRIVAL