After Earth Reviews

...a step in the right direction for beleaguered filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

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.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Visually impressive but sadly incredulous, "After Earth" is only redeemed by the performances of the Smith family.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan, who hadn't made a truly great film since 2002, returns to form with this exciting and well-paced adventure

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

While I understand the critical backlash towards Shyamalan, I disagree and found After Earth to be a solid movie, not great but good.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

For all its mealymouthed dialogue and often comical solemnity After Earth at least delivers consistently diverting entertainment ...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

it may not be the complete return to form of Shyamalan, but "After Earth" has all the goods necessary for an entertaining summer ride.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Exciting sci-fi action and warm father-son bonding.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

It's no classic, but it's a special movie: spectacular and wise.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

Will Smith is a fun and funny guy. So why is Smith's sci-fi thriller screaming for a sense of humor?

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

After Earth at least looks distinctive, and the movie's overall atmosphere of close-quarter jungle delirium is enhanced by the cramped, earth-toned interiors of spaceships, off-world colony condos and crashed cockpits.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

A beautiful bit of world-building that - if you're not chronically opposed to Will Smith and his kid - will transport you to the kind of adventure that I know I imagined in the backyard when I was younger than Jaden Smith.

Full Review

A simplistic, father-son morality play strictly for little kids and diehard Will and Jaden Smith fans. Destined to be added to the pantheon of inadvertently-funny blaxploitation flicks with a devoted cult following.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

After Earth is refreshing in that it's not rife with fast-cuts, whooshing camera shots, and overblown visual effects.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Director Shyamalan gets the most out of the Smiths, sometimes simply staying out of their way. He also keeps things moving briskly with a story that eschews exposition in favor of flashback glimpses.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

It's an admirable YA adventure, a moderately engaging piece of sci-fi storytelling, a return to respectability for Shyamalan and a welcome departure for an aging Will Smith.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

... the film offers some very knowing examples of the way both parents and children have to adjust their thinking over the course of their relationship, wrapped up in a visually dynamic world that simply makes the stakes feel more urgent...

Full Review | Original Score: B-

I can't lie and say I didn't enjoy this asinine movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10

The movie spent a lot of time teetering on the verge of failure but both Smiths pull it back and make it fairly enjoyable. Jaden Smith proves that he is a star. Haters gonna hate.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

"After Earth" won't change your world, but it's attractive ...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4