#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.]

#14 The Last Airbender

Yeah, this isn't going to be my 50^th review, I miscounted badly

With

13 Rage reviews

6 Guilty Pleasures reviews

9 Legend of Korra books 1-2 reviews

8 Legend of Korra book 3 reviews

4 Doctor Who review

2 Arrow season 1 reviews

3 Avatar: The Last Airbender reviews

A Batman (1989) review

3 Star Wars reviews

3 Lego Star Wars reviews, and

2 Star Wars: The Clone Wars reviews

I count this as my 55^th review (excluding that Doctor Who retrospective which wasn’t really a review)

Ah, well, maybe I'll get the 100th review correct. This is my celebration, on one of my least favourite movies ever, and it's fitting, since I've done more reviews on this franchise than any other, that the Avatar franchise would be my focus. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present M Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender

M Night Shyamalan, what happened to you after the 6^th sense? People were calling you the next Spielberg, then came Signs, described the Nostalgia Critic as "the invasion of the plot holes," "The Village" which I cannot describe because I haven’t seen it at all, then came "Lady in the Water" where Shyamalan cast HIMSELF as a writer whose words will "change the world" and to top off this ego trip THE VILLAIN WAS A CRITIC. Then came "The Happening", the movie that made Mark Whalberg look like a bad actor (before Michael Bay came close to him), and Shyamalan could not describe the movie without using the word "Happening"

So, it makes perfect sense that Nickelodeon would turn down the experience of people dedicated to the Avatar Franchise (Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino) and chose Shyamalan, someone whose writing experience is in the horror/comedy genres to write this martial arts family action adventure movie, and not only write it, but produce and direct it as well. Shyamalan was given $300 million for a 3-movie franchise, but the first movie came out at $150 million and whilst financially successful was slammed critically and no sequel has been announced (thank heaven for small mercies) let's dig into The Last Airbender, and see how big a sh*t storm Shyamalan can bend.