After Earth

An inoffensive drama (taking place in the future) about the relationship of a fearless general (strangely detached Will) and his lily-livered cadet son (lily-livered Jaden) and their attempt to get off the planet that they crash landed on. Shy stumbles into one disaster after another, but here he is on top of the direction and he even comes up with some bright ideas. A straightforward and simple story about dispelling fear is very flimsy and the transformation at the end was very forced. So only a fair amount of blood and killer animals keep it above water. Just right, really. And how the Earth started to flourish as soon as those parasites had rocketed off elsewhere... (09/20/2013)

This movie has such a precise filmmaking that it’s almost a shame that it’s ruined by individual moments that I simply can’t look past. After Earth is a great movie with an interesting premise and a directing that Shyamalan really nailed. But the really decent overall quality is ruined by, for example, the relationship between the father and the son, thus between Will and Jaden. I thought that it was all too serious and over-the-top. Actually, I didn’t manage to form any kind of relationship with them throughout the entire movie. It felt as if two human robots were on screen. A father with a broken leg talking all sorts of nonsense due to a delirium and a son with a mission that not even the best SAS unit could take on. I was also bothered by some of the individual scenes, like the one in which Jaden jumps off a mountain. I was getting over that for quite some time. But hats off! Shyamalan can still shoot the movies he himself believes in, even with a compromised career. And then the entire movie ends up looking really great, but after about twenty minutes of a “wow” atmosphere comes some sort of a nonsense that makes me sick to my stomach. (11/17/2013)

Shyamalan once again showed that he is not that bad of a director, but also that he really should not write screenplays. The story is primitive, full of dementia and clichés. Smith Jr. in the lead role is also no money-maker. This interesting topic (from Will Smith's brain) could certainly have been more than an expensive-looking and story-free sci-fi about a father-son relationship. (06/05/2013)

Not great, not terrible. The story could have taken place anywhere, let's say in British Columbia, from where (or to where) the central couple would be transporting, say, a grizzly bear... The science fiction presentation just bogs it down with unnecessary questions like "Why does the planet freeze overnight and how does nature deal with it?". Neither of the Smiths gives a particularly interesting performance, nor does the direction come up with any great ideas... Perhaps only Newton Howard's music is above average. (10/07/2014)

This film has a promising start. With its interesting sci-fi vision, beautiful visuals and the theme of bringing a father together with his son, who is also undergoing a process of self-realisation process, After Earth has great blockbuster potential. Despite the pleasant charm of adventurousness, however, the result is a weak storyline that fails completely in terms of both emotion and message. It is like when you know what you are supposed to be experiencing as a viewer, but it just passes you by due to its naivety and half-baked nature. To a large extent, that is actually Jaden Smith’s fault, or perhaps we should blame Shyamalan’s directing. (05/15/2019)