#58 - Smith Month - After Earth

In this instalment of Smith Month

I’m revisiting an old friend of the show, M Night Shyamalan

It’s been a while since I reviewed the last one and it’s still most anger-inducing product I’ve ever watched. But this one is slightly different. Will Smith wrote the plot of this movie, which M Night and Garry Whitta adapted into a screenplay. Jaden may have been successful in the Karate Kid but it certainly didn’t seem like he was getting a lot of other acting roles, this came out 3 years after the Karate Kid, and something had happened, Jaden had gone through puberty so his voice and performance is significantly changed from Karate Kid

It’s fairly obvious this movie was Will Smith’s attempt to bolster his son into stardom, and if that was the case then EPIC FAIL! This movie was panned on release, 11% on Rotten Tomatoes, and was also a box office failure, earning $250m on a $150m budget + $100m marketing. So, what went wrong? Was it Shyamalan’s direction, the writing or a mixture of the two? Let’s take a look at After Earth.]

We start with an exposition dump. You know, these have worked so well in Green Lantern, The Last Airbender, Dragonball Evolution, Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, I could go on. And Star Wars doesn’t really count because instead of explaining its lore, it explains some context to the situation you’re about to be dumped into.

So, to the actual exposition then, they evacuated earth because FORCED ENVIRONMENTAL COMMENTARY founding the United Ranger Corps to oversee the evacuation, for some reason. They evacuated to a planet named Nova Prime, but they’re not alone. The aliens, which we never see so I don’t know why they were mentioned at all, released creatures called the Ursa, blind hunters that could smell fear.

Now, my first problem with this. Shyamalan should be right at home with this concept, the Ursa should be terrifying but the movie barely uses the Ursa, in fact I don’t think that, outside perhaps in this brief flash, the Ursa kills anyone on screen in the entire movie. That’s not scary, he’s beaten by a kid with a knife (spoiler alert) for goodness sake.

But the hope for the Earth came with the Prime Commander named Cypher Raige hahahahahhahahaha, no seriously, what’s his real name? Are you kidding me? It’s only a few seconds in and I can’t take this seriously anymore. Not only does that undermine the stakes and the horror, it makes it difficult to get invested. He’s mastered a technique called ghosting which means he’s afraid of nothing and completely detached from everything, which whilst perhaps being a clever idea, makes us harder to relate to his character. He’s invisible to the Ursa and kill them easily, ergo the aliens are idiots, good to know.

So, we see our main character, Kitai (Jaden Smith) out running and clearly outpacing the others… We’re later told that he’s not being advanced to the rank of Ranger because of his inefficiencies in the field, of which we’ve seen none, in fact he’s a fast runner. Maybe you could fail him for being undisciplined and breaking formation but that would show an inkling of intelligence, and this movie isn’t really a movie for that. It’s more for taking the stupid and bashing your brains in with it until you think you might believe it.  

Oh, and one other thing of note here, the accents, Jesus Christ the accents. Who approved these? They sound awful and stilted, and later Jaden’s voice will crack trying to maintain it. I know they want it to sound futuristic but what the audience cares about is it sounding good. This accent is just unpleasant to listen to.

So, what’s Kitai’s home like, his mother works on turbines, what the turbines are for is never explained we just see her playing about with holograms and sh*t. Cypher… no, I can’t take this seriously, I’m gonna call him Paris Franz, because I can take that name more seriously. So Paris Franz returns home and tells his wife he’s got one last mission in the morning before announcing his retirement… Well, what could possibly go wrong here?

She tells him that Kitai is a feeling, intuitive boy, searching for his father. We’ve seen no evidence to support this so I’m just gonna pretend this scene never happened and skip to the dinner scene. And we see that there’s such a connection between father and Son, Paris Franz forces Kitai to call him sir, there’s chemistry right there!

So in what’s really an odd moment when you factor in the rest of the movie, Paris Franz has an emotional outburst about Kitai wanting to go to his room. He never does that again, my god it would be better if he did, show something that gives me some insight into his character, allow Will Smith to bring just an iota of his charisma onto the screen

Anyway, Paris Franz decides to take Kitai on his mission because what’s the worst that could happen, right? So, on the plane Kitai ignores an Authorised Personnel Only warning and comes across an Ursa, protected by the impenetrable toothpick curtains and a few rangers. So after finding out who Kitai is, the sergeant, I think, decides to f*ck with him and see whether he can Ghost, well his ass is fired.

But Paris Franz's plot-sense starts tingling as he places his ring up to something and then we get this scene.

“I detected Graviton vibrations in the hull”
“Graviton build-up could be a precursor to mass expansion”
“Mass expansion is one in a million”

Those are definitely words that are said… I don’t have a clue what any of them mean but they are definitely words. This is where Shyamalan’s weakness really shows, his speciality is in horror, not sci-fi so his method of conveying the technobabble is a little off. Even if we as an audience don’t understand what people are saying word-for-word, we’re at least supposed to get the gist of what’s going on. Here, they may as well be speaking gibberish, that’s not how sci-fi technobabble is supposed to work, unless it’s a joke which I don’t believe was the intention here, or anywhere really. It doesn’t help that Will Smith delivers this with the same bland expression he delivers almost every other line in this movie.

How about this, since it involves asteroids anyway. Say the hull has an unusual magnetic charge that could attract the asteroid storm. Also, Will Smith detecting whatever graviton vibrations are with his ring is beyond stupid when the sensors and computers on the ship couldn’t detect it. Anyway, the asteroid storm hits them and the ship is badly damaged, they manage a wormhole jump away from the asteroids with but with engines offline, they have to land at the nearest planet. The planet in question is quarantined and it’s illegal to land there under threat of death. Is the legal penalty really necessary?

Their landing doesn’t go well, Kitai is strapped in but no-one else thought that was a good idea so all get sucked out and presumably killed when the ship rips in half, idiots. Oh. and Paris Franz survives too, he was sucked into the cockpit or something before-hand. So, Kitai survives the crash without a scratch and we get a scene where a clear plastic sheet goes up and down. Shyamalan, this is supposed to build up something scary, here it’s just stupid, anyway, apparently, it’s an air-tight seal… Of course, it is... And when Kitai removes the body stopping it from fully closing, it’s completely safe to breathe in that half of the ship.

He finds his father, co-incidentally the only other survivor of the crash, but it’s not looking great for him, some debris crushed his legs, both of them are broken, to make matters worse their emergency beacon was damaged in the crash, the only other one is in the back half of the ship, several days journey away on foot. With Kitai the only one physically able to make the journey it’s time to gear him up. He has some capsules to ensure he can breathe… this is not gonna make much sense in a minute but let’s skip that for now. The deadliest weapon of a sharp pointy stick, and some computer sh*t that allows Paris Franz to communicate with him and see his every move. Thank god none of that was damaged in the crash, not to mention the scout drones he’s gonna send out in a minute.

So with some breathing fluid taken, he heads out into the lush jungle and I have a question. The breathing fluid is supposed to allow more oxygen intake but it’s been 1000 years of no pollution, but the trees have been active, if the air was just about breathable when they left, it should be breathable 1000 years later. I guess it depends what the air is like on Nova Prime but I’d presume it’d be similar to regular Earth concentrations. Oh, and apparently gravity is stronger on Earth, this won’t factor into anything at all, so forget I even mentioned it.

Oh, and there’s 2 other things I should mention, the first being the fact that if he doesn’t do this they will die, Paris Franz says it and has Kitai repeat it, I’ll have a point about that later. The second is ‘everything on this planet has evolved to kill humans’ ERM…. BULLSH*T! Not only is a counter-example to this featured only seconds later but if that were the case, he’d be immediately attacked by ants/bugs or something upon exiting the ship. Also, why would they do that? Evolution in animal terms at least is adapting for survival. Humans haven’t lived on the planet for centuries, why would they evolve to kill something that isn’t there and doesn’t pose an active threat?

Actually, there is one more stupid thing. Apparently at night the temperature drops to freezing and the only way to survive is to find randomly located ‘hotspots’ I don’t really need to explain why this is stupid, right? So, determined Kitai makes his climb and oh look a spider not using its apparent evolution to kill Kitai… you’ve just exposed your own plot point as bullsh*t within seconds.

So, what’s the first animal that actually does try to kill him. He comes across a baboon and we get this line of dialogue

“My suit’s turned black. I like it but I think it’s something bad”

I’m sorry, how many people proof-read this script? Not one of them noticed how stupid that line of dialogue sounds… Anyway, apparently his suit is colour coded to warn him of danger, so glad he wasn’t already aware of that so we can have this atrocious line.

Speaking of atrocious dialogue, what Will Smith advises he do is just… can he stop sounding like the narrator of a trailer and more like a goddamn human being already.

“Recognise your power. This will be your creation” f*ck off! It’s no surprise then when Kitai ignores his father’s ‘advice’ and ends up being chased down by them. Despite the fact we saw earlier that Kitai is a fast runner, he doesn’t really show it here and it always looks like they’re catching up before a cut puts them back a bit. He escapes into a river but in the process picks up a leech which is injecting a toxin into his hand.

He manages to remove it but because poisons work like this it’s already beginning to effect him, poisons take a little bit of time to take effect, he can’t have had that leech on him for more than a few seconds. Anyway, as luck would have it he has an anti-toxin in his med kit, how convenient

But because the bullsh*t train needs to continue rolling, it needs to be injected directly into his heart. You know, we have a thing called a rib cage, it’s supposed to protect the lungs and the heart, your tiny little injector needles would have to be super-precise to not hit the bones, and Kitai is practically blind because of the toxin. He manages to somehow administer the anti-toxin but at the very least, that doesn’t take effect immediately and he has to lie down for a bit

Meanwhile, Paris Franz, who earlier had chosen not to take painkillers because of the risk of drowsiness manages to rewire his arteries with a knife and a bit of plastic tubing. This isn't badass, this is just more stupid. Moving on…

Kitai wakes up but discovers 2 of his vials of breathing fluid were damaged during the chase, a fact he hides from his father. Anyway, night is setting and the stupid temperature drop is about to happen so Kitai heads to a hotspot. We get a scene of the two of them talking but it’s not deep character stuff it’s just a pretentious speech about fear and delivered with all the energy of a diet coke, with ice… And no, I’m not getting paid to promote CocaCola, although if they want to, my bank details are…

The next morning, Kitai stumbles across some dismembered parts of the baboons, Paris Franz suspects it may be the Ursa. He urges Kitai to get to the falls and he does so, which leads me to a big problem with this movie, the pacing. It’s slow in some places, falling to old trap of massive dumps of exposition but in places like this really fast. Still, if it means the movie’s over sooner, I’m all for it.

Kitai arrives at the falls but Paris Franz begins to uncover his lie and discovers the two broken vials of breathing fluid. He tells Kitai to abort and here’s where I want to bring back the fact that if he doesn’t do it, they will die! Hell, it took him 2 vials to get to the falls, there’s no guarantee he’ll even survive the journey back, there’s nothing to gain by having him return, aside from maybe more breathing fluid but if that’s all it was, why is Kitai kicking up such a fuss about it?

And yes, this is where the accent and his puberty lead to the frankly hilarious read of ‘no dad.’ Kitai jumps from the cliff and begins his glide, unfortunately an eagle catches him in flight and thinks she can feed him to her chicks, who are so small and weak they couldn’t even tickle him. Yeah, I don’t think everything on this planet has evolved to kill humans. Oh, and then a pack of tigers show up. Kitai attempts to fight them off and whilst he does so, the chicks themselves die… what a pleasant movie this is.

The Eagle just kinda lets him go and don’t worry, it’ll get even more stupid later. Katai has lost any communication with his father in the accident. After evaluating his route, and taking the last of his breathing fluid, Kitai builds a raft and begins heading down the river. OK, I haven’t mentioned this until now because I didn’t think it was that important, Kitai’s sister was killed by an Ursa after she sealed him in a protective bubble. He blames himself as is relatively common for just about every protagonist with a dead relative ever. This is the reason he isn’t great on the field. Oh, and there’s some sh*t about Moby Dick which really has nothing to do with anything.

So, Kitai stops hallucinating on his raft but finds himself adrift, too far from a hotspot to reach one as night begins to fall, also the abduction seems to have robbed him of his equipment and sharp stick, so he’s no longer in communication with his father. So, how does he survive this? Get this, the eagle drags him to safety and keeps him warm, sacrificing her own life in the process. Shouldn’t the eagle have adapted to the cold by now, it occurs every night after all? Also, yeah, guess evolution to kill humans can be undone by just meeting one, who knew? Oh, at this point, he loses his sharp stick, but don’t worry, he won’t encounter anything that requires fighting off because who needs tension anyway?

Kitai finds a piece of the back end of the ship, climbing a tree he sees the rest but it looks like a significant… he arrives there in the next shot. He finds some more breathing fluid, another sharp stick, but also confirms that the Ursa has escaped. He finds the beacon and another wrist-com. He tries to make contact with his father but the signal’s weak, Paris Franz can hear what he’s saying, but not the other way around… More bullsh*t please!

The beacon is also not working. Kitai realises it needs to be taken to higher ground but who should be waiting for him there but the Ursa. And even with acid spit and cloaking, the Ursa just doesn’t look scary enough. Kitai eventually defeats it by surrendering to not feeling anything. So he sends out the beacon, help finally comes, a scene begins in slo-mo for no reason and there’s a scene where his father gets up and salutes Kitai mirroring a scene that I didn’t even bother describing because it only exists so it can be mirrored here. Kitai and Paris Franz embrace and we get the one, count ‘em one, line of dialogue that sounds remotely like a father talking to his son

“Me too”

Yeah, that was the line, hope you’re impressed with this. That’s the end of the movie

This movie is bad, really really bad. The performances by Will and Jaden, who are the only characters of note for most of the movie are bad, but I’d put that down to bad direction from Shyamalan over anything, that and whoever came up with the stupid stupid accent. There’s little tension, the horror aspect is dim, the sci-fi elements are boring, the pacing is all over the place, the tone is too dour and emotionless. The effects, particularly the Ursa haven’t aged that well either.

But let’s not blame Shyamalan entirely, this script is bad and must’ve been bad from the get-go, this needed a few more rewrites with a greater emphasis on character arcs and emotional bonding between father and son and particularly the difficulty of ghosting whilst holding onto emotional ties. Kitai’s journey has surprisingly little depth to it, it’s hard to gauge what’s going on inside his head because for a large chunk of the movie he has no-one to interact with, and Shyamalan isn’t a good enough director to compensate for that.

The stupidity of this movie beggars belief, frankly. This might be among the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen, and with my catalogue of reviews, that’s saying something

THIS MOVIE GIVES ME RAGE ISSUES

Rating 120%