Danger is real. Fear is a choice. But can Jaden Smith replicate his Karate Kid success here, especially if he has his superstar dad on his side?
Many years after the human race escaped a dying Earth for a new planet home called Nova Prime, Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) is training to become a top-level ranger. His goal is to become one of the top space rangers on the planet, and make his father, the legendary general Cypher (Will Smith) proud. Due to his rebellious nature, Kitai is chosen not to advance to being a top-level space ranger. Hoping to re-bond with his son, Cypher decides to take Kitai with him on his final mission before his (to be announced) retirement. Unfortunately, on their way to their destination, the spaceship is hit by a meteorite, causing it to crash on a now more-dangerous Earth. Kitai and a badly-injured Cypher survive the crash. Realizing the help-signaling beacon is on a broken end of the tail-end of the ship, located a few miles away from the crashed cockpit, Cypher gets his son to go out to find it. Braving the elements and the human-killing creatures, Kitai must complete his mission, or he and his father will die.
The visuals in After Earth are terrific. The futuristic space-crafts and the Star Wars-like world of Nova Prime are realistically well-done. The cinematography is also amazing, with exciting camera shots and angles. Digitized animals are amazingly real, and the alien at the end is realistically scary enough. I also found the action sequences to be exciting.
While not at their best here, Will and Jaden do bring sincere amounts of emotion and likeability in their roles of Cypher and Kitai. James Newton Howard does a decent job with the music score. Strong messages in family and overcoming your fears are present, as well as valuing time with others.
As far as downsides are concerned, I personally found the film to be a bit disturbing at times. Also, the screenplay is often-times very thin, causing the overall pace of the film to be very unsettled. At the beginning, we never seem to get to know the mom or the sister that was killed, as the beginning goes very quickly. Then, once we get into space, it seems to take a long time to get to the beacon.
The bland screenplay also causes the overall acting to fall short. The Smiths are interesting, but not very memorable in their roles. The flashbacks are poorly filmed, so much that it sometimes looks like home movies (though the flashback sequences are still a nice addition overall). There's also a problem with the music placing. In the films' most emotional moments, its' quiet. With no music, it causes these moments to fail to really engage me.
That being said, After Earth isn't as bad as what critics say it is, but it's far from being a well-made movie. Those looking for something to see, there's certainly worse things to see than After Earth, but there's also a lot of better things to see.
While not at their best here, Will and Jaden do bring sincere amounts of emotion and likeability in their roles of Cypher and Kitai. James Newton Howard does a decent job with the music score. Strong messages in family and overcoming your fears are present, as well as valuing time with others.
As far as downsides are concerned, I personally found the film to be a bit disturbing at times. Also, the screenplay is often-times very thin, causing the overall pace of the film to be very unsettled. At the beginning, we never seem to get to know the mom or the sister that was killed, as the beginning goes very quickly. Then, once we get into space, it seems to take a long time to get to the beacon.
The bland screenplay also causes the overall acting to fall short. The Smiths are interesting, but not very memorable in their roles. The flashbacks are poorly filmed, so much that it sometimes looks like home movies (though the flashback sequences are still a nice addition overall). There's also a problem with the music placing. In the films' most emotional moments, its' quiet. With no music, it causes these moments to fail to really engage me.
That being said, After Earth isn't as bad as what critics say it is, but it's far from being a well-made movie. Those looking for something to see, there's certainly worse things to see than After Earth, but there's also a lot of better things to see.
Should You Take Your Family To See It? While cleaner than your average PG-13 pic, After Earth is still sometimes violent and disturbing, with some bloodshed and one scene showing someone performing arterial surgery on himself. Characters are killed, and a frightening alien may cause younger ones nightmares. Not much else wrong, we do hear one d---, and someone says "screwed". I think this is an OK choice for teenagers on up, but it still doesn't get higher than a Level 3 on the Family-Friendliness Scale, which means parents are advised to watch it first.
