After Earth (2013) - Review

There’s no getting around it: M. Night Shyamalan is a complete and utter laughing stock in Hollywood.  Everyone has a different jumping off point (for me, it’s after Signs) and similarly everyone has their opinions on whether his bad movies are funny in their incompetence or not (my opinion: usually), but few people argue that the films in the latter half of his filmography are any good at all.  I’m fully on board with that, but I’m not willing to concede that After Earth is his worst movie; I’m not even convinced that it’s really that bad of a movie.

But to understand this somewhat controversial opinion, you must first understand my feelings on Shyamalan’s other work.  I think The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs are great movies, albeit all ones that suffer from knowing the big ‘twist’.  After that he starts to falter big time.  The Village is mediocre at best and I never saw Lady in the Water.  The Happening is where he starts to get truly hilarious, and it’s one of my favorite comedies of all time.  The Last Airbender is pretty funny too (especially if you’re at all familiar with the infinitely superior animated series on which the film is based).

After Earth hits this awkward middle point in which it’s not really that bad – certainly not bad enough to be hilarious – but it’s not very good either.  It’s really just an alright movie with some major flaws.  These flaws in themselves are funny: the stupid mashed-up accents, the tranquilizer inspired performance of Will Smith, the terrible-no-good-very-bad writing (including the most ridiculous names in a screenplay: Kitai and Cypher Raige), and really the concept that Earth has evolved to kill humans in such an insanely short amount of time.  However, when taken as a whole, the experience of watching After Earth just isn’t that knee-slapping.

"Swear to God, Jaden, if this movie bombs..."

Will Smith just seems bored, Jaden Smith seems like he can’t carry a whole movie by himself, and the direction is pretty lousy, leaving the subpar script and middling effects to carry the weight.  But I guess I’m kind of grading on a curve, because objectively this movie is a vast improvement over The Happening and The Last Airbender.  The performances, while phoned-in, aren’t laugh-out-loud terrible, and the script is at least somewhat trying.

If it weren’t for a myriad of problems, this would be an average movie because there’s nothing really wrong with the cast (both Smith boys have proven they can do much better than this) or the plot itself.  But those minor flaws add up quickly, making a movie too dumb to be any good, but not dumb enough to be any fun.

I think I like this even less after typing all of this out.  Thanks guys!