After Earth: a pale nepotism

By Zhang Rui
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, July 12, 2013
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M. Night Shyamalan never did things right after "The Sixth Sense," with his new effort "After Earth", another hit-and-miss.

The sci-fi adventure drama came from a storyline conceived by Will Smith, who produced the movie together with his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith and persuaded Shyamalan to take on the project.

The movie tells the story of a father, a general of peacekeeping rangers, and his teenage son, who wants to live up to his father's standards. A thousand years after cataclysmic events forced humans to abandon Earth in search of a new planet to call home, the father-son pair crash land on Earth. With their other crew members dead and Smith severely injured, the son then embarks on a dangerous journey across hostile terrain to get his dying father help. Along the way, he faces animals, predators and a ruthless alien beast.

It is the second film, the first one being "The Pursuit of Happyness," that stars real-life father and son Will and Jaden Smith. However, "After Earth" does not possess the charm of "Happyness" and it's seems more to be a sacrifice on Will Smith's part (including that of his own charisma) to launch his son as a new movie star -- yet the young Smith unfortunately doesn't show any real acting talent throughout the film.

Although the film is the first from Sony Pictures to be both shot and presented in 4K resolution, the visual concepts are at times great, most of the time they lack the element of surprise or the power to move audiences. The movie is predictable, with an anti-climax and no deep layers. It is an average jungle chase movie, seemingly taken from a video game, with some sci-fi elements and a pinch of Scientology salt added to its mixture.

It could have been very interesting and ambitious to at least show some post-apocalyptic scenes as it's been one millennium since mankind was on Earth, but you never see any kind of space opera or fresh creativity happening. Both the father and son's adventure and interaction are flat, with no merits whatsoever -- even when compared to "Oblivion."

"After Earth" will hit Chinese theaters on July 12, 2013.

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