Rated: P13
Genre: Sci-fi adventure
Running Time: 95 minutes
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Writers: Gary Whitta, M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Jaden Smith, Will Smith
Synopsis: A crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.
Verdict: The film has plenty of problems indeed, from the emotionless opening monologue to the extremely corny ending, but to be very fair, at least it's more watchable than any of the last 4 movies that M. Night Shyamalan directed. I'd put half of the blame on Will Smith's uninspiring story, and then the writers of the script, of course, for not even trying to make it work. The father-and-son relationship thing is as weak as the CGI of the creatures. Jaden Smith's performance is unimpressive but it's forgivable 'cause I don't think any brilliant acting could save this film from being less crappy. After Earth would've been better as a video game... a decade ago.
Second opinion: "Started off a bit boring but managed to keep me in my seat" (girlfriend).
Rating: 1.5 / 5
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One-legged exaggeration: There's a scene at the beginning where a one-legged Ranger insists to get up from his wheelchair to salute his saviour, Cypher (Will Smith). He shouts to command his two caretakers to stand him up. What a pretentiously dramatic bastard. He's no Power Ranger but how hard is it to stand up with a leg?
Ursa: If the alien can't hunt anything that has no fear, wouldn't that make them a completely useless creature? All the Rangers have to do is come up with a training to perceive the alien as a harmless waste of space. But evidently the Rangers aren't a very smart bunch. They're not even smart enough to implement a heater feature to their colour-changing "Smart Suit". Heck, even Cypher, the pioneer of "ghosting" (fear-suppressing technique), can't teach his own son how to be fearless.
The huge condor: It catches Kitai (Jaden Smith) to feed its baby birdies, then somehow knows that he tried to protect them when the tiger so happened to attack the nest when he just woke up from unconscious state and then it sacrifices itself to save him from freezing to death even though he didn't manage to prevent any of its babies from dying. What....?
Senshi: When Kitai was young, her sister put him into a thing that prevents the alien from sensing fear and dies fighting the alien. One, why can't she hide in that thing with him and two, how in the planet did that alien manage to get into their home? This is just bad, bad writing.
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