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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.
Critic 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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All Critics (200) | Top Critics (42) | Fresh (23) | Rotten (177) | 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.
At least something like Battlefield Earth is unintentionally hilarious; After Earth doesn't even have the dignity to be laughably bad.
A listlessly written, lackadaisically executed story which can't seem to do much more than march through its preordained paces.
With little in common with Shyamalan's other films, it's difficult to compare this to his other projects except to say that if he was trying something different, it didn't work.
After Earth stays grounded, and manages to tell a pretty decent story.
The future-based characters seem to bear no relation at all to actual living, laughing, arguing human beings.
With all the other sci-fi options at multiplexes right now, this Will Smith vehicle will probably get lost in the shuffle.
When hi-powered talent arrives one is given to expect major fireworks and so it's a bit of a letdown when only a sparkler goes off. Although well intentioned this space opera only lacks a convincing lead and a story. The seed is there but is plucked perhaps too soon. Try, try again. Still, not as terrible as some have described it, and is not inedible.
Super Reviewer
Though far from the complete disaster that most critics claim it to be, this flawed star vehicle suffers from a terrible performance by Jaden Smith and a sloppy script plagued by badly conceived narrative elements in a very predictable, unsatisfying story.
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.
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.
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