After Earth (2013)
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Critics Consensus: After Earth is a dull, ploddingly paced exercise in sentimental sci-fi -- and the latest setback for director M. Night Shyamalan's once-promising career.
Critics Consensus: After Earth is a dull, ploddingly paced exercise in sentimental sci-fi -- and the latest setback for director M. Night Shyamalan's once-promising career.
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Movie Info
A crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity's escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any … More- Rating:
- PG-13 (for sci-fi action violence and some disturbing images)
- Genre:
- Action & Adventure , Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Directed By:
- M. Night Shyamalan
- In Theaters:
- May 31, 2013 Wide
- On DVD:
- Oct 8, 2013
- US Box Office:
- $60.5M
Cast
-
Will Smith
as General Cypher Raige -
Jaden Smith
as Kitai Raige -
Zoë Kravitz
as Senshi Raige -
Sophie Okonedo
as Faia Raige -
Glenn Morshower
as Commander Velan
Related News & Features
-
Nominate the Worst Screen Combo for the 2013 Razzie Awards
– Rotten Tomatoes
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Critic Reviews for After Earth
All Critics (188) | Top Critics (42) | Fresh (20) | Rotten (168) | DVD (2)
As drama, After Earth offers no surprises; as action, it's rarely stimulating; as a parenting manual, it seems that Will has thrown Jaden into water that's a little too deep.
Most disappointing is the film's lack of ambition, as what could have been a sparky mainstream space opera becomes just another tedious jungle chase movie.
The movie takes off from a concept as basic as a videogame, and it sticks to that concept, without surprise.
A film in which the text and subtext-an effortlessly gifted father presses his less-talented son to follow in his footsteps-are in perfect alignment. Alas, only in one of the two does the story end happily.
By the standards of M. Night's Shyamalan's recent films, After Earth is surprisingly not horrible.
It's no classic, but it's a special movie: spectacular and wise.
After a not very impressive crash sequence, the film settles into a running battle between young Master Smith and a series of CGI monsters, a schema that sounds tiresome, and is.
The dialogue is as wooden as the acting, and the plot is just silly. Truly, the only thing the film has going for it are some occasionally cool special effects.
Shyamalan mostly stays out of the way, but he still makes himself known, and not in good ways.
The results are mixed.
Calling After Earth the worst film ever made may be overstating things, but it's a disaster zone of Chernobyl-esque proportions.
The effects are second-hand stuff from Alien and Star Trek, spliced with Shyamalan's regular homilies on Personal Growth.
There's an extended animated sequence where atop a high hill, Kitai is surrounded by helix swells of grackles and blackbirds, and the camera turns to reveal waves and waves of burly bison. To the wonder, ho!
Does not enhance reputations or entrance audiences despite, or because of, pretentions to being larger than pure adventure.
It seems proud of its predictability only because we should feel privileged to watch Will Smith and his son act in a second movie together.
Pompous, humourless tosh.
Shyamalan's worst habits end up overwhelming the most formidable assets at his disposal: the Smiths.
As the story moves along with an almost medicating dullness, so antiseptic and square and insulated from any fun or spark or non-self-seriousness, the entire movie has that plastic-wrap feel of a hermetically-sealed Hollywood vanity project.
The thinness of the story is its greatest undoing, culminating in an anticlimax that is distinctly unsatisfying.
...a step in the right direction for beleaguered filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan...
By any fair measure, After Earth is actually quite a nifty, pacy adventure film, even though it was directed by M. Night Shyamalan, who has not made a good film since his 1999 debut The Sixth Sense.
Uneven father-son post apocalyptic space adventure still a minor comeback for the director.
The dejected Will Smith is forced to inject himself with pain relief. The label warns that the drug could cause extreme drowsiness and impaired vision. One can only imagine that Will was suffering from both when he agreed to film this daft script.
This movie... is about nobody's pleasure or deep vision. It is, instead, about positioning two actors in the power structure of the film industry.
It is ironic that a film about a son following the legacy of his father has seen the Smith family shoot themselves in the foot in their second outing as a collective.
Audience Reviews for After Earth
There is something very nice about a Father and Son making films together that makes it hard to dislike After Earth, even though it isn't very good. Will Smith grunts his way through, obviously letting his son have the limelight, a loving gesture, but unfortunately little Jaden Smith isn't ready to take on a leading role. He was good in the Karate Kid remake but this is a little too much too soon for the little mite. I could barely hear a word he was saying half the time, I can't help but think his panicked and nervous performance was more natural then it was acting. I'm sure the Smith family will treasure it forever but the rest of us will probably just forget that it exists within a couple of years.
http://cinephilecrocodile.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/after-earth-dir-m.html
Super Reviewer
Boredom, as it relates to film, occurs when the audience is unable and unwilling to care about the story. After Earth is a prime example of a boring movie. Its premise is set up in broad strokes, never giving the audience time to believe in it. It's too violent for kids and too childish for the summer crowd. Lastly, the whole film feels tailor made to turn Jaden Smith into the next big star, and based on his performance here, that is an expectation he is unable to meet and does not deserve. Even if it isn't as bad as it's been made out to be, After Earth is still instantly forgettable.
MoreSuper Reviewer
I didn't hate this. I guess that I heard so many terrible reviews, that I was expecting a real stinker. The only weakness in this film was the quality of the animals. With today's CGI abilities, the DIRECTOR could have done a lot better in this area, especially with the big budget this film boasted. Story line, and acting were up to par. M. Shyamalan needs to give up making movies...he is poison.
MoreSuper Reviewer
Danger is real. Fear is a choice.
Not a bad movie! This was a great, entertaining, emotionally charged sci-fi flick and I enjoyed every minute of it. I admit I was caught into the M. Night hoopla and expected a twist ending but this one is just a straight forward mainstream adventure flick. One of the final scenes between father and son was near brilliant and almost brought tears to my eyes. The special effects were very well done and some of the monsters and beasts they created were epic in stature and should be looked at as being fun and well done. I guess I just don't understand the expectations people had from this. It seems that people have a real grudge against young entertainers like Jaden Smith but I am not one of them and I encourage you if you love sci-fi to watch this and simply enjoy it.
One thousand years after cataclysmic events forced humanity's escape from Earth, Nova Prime has become mankind's new home. Legendary General Cypher Raige returns from an extended tour of duty to his estranged family, ready to be a father to his 13-year-old son, Kitai. When an asteroid storm damages Cypher and Kitai's craft, they crash-land on a now unfamiliar and dangerous Earth. As his father lies dying in the cockpit, Kitai must trek across the hostile terrain to recover their rescue beacon. His whole life, Kitai has wanted nothing more than to be a soldier like his father. Today, he gets his chance.
Super Reviewer
After Earth Quotes
- General Cypher Raige:
- We are all telling ourselves a story.
- General Cypher Raige:
- Danger is very real but fear is a choice.
- General Cypher Raige:
- Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist.
- General Cypher Raige:
- Do you know where we are?
- Kitai Raige:
- No, sir.
- General Cypher Raige:
- This is Earth.
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