There are a lot of things I could say about “After Earth,” the sci fi thriller co-written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan (“The Last Airbender”) and co-starring Will Smith and his son, Jaden.
One of those things is “thought-provoking." It certainly raises its share of questions. Things like:
So animals can evolve into giant man-eating species in just about 1,000 years when previous evidence suggests it takes billions?
A pack of wild hungry baboons is afraid of … a river?
Can a human really repair his own severed femoral artery using a rubber tube?
Why do future people never use contractions?
And if they have these really wicked double-bladed sword things, why don’t they have laser guns of some sort also?
Why do this world’s seat belts make hissing noises when they buckle and unbuckle?
When did birds start forming emotional bonds with their food?
I could go on, but at this point it would probably be more practical to say the “After Earth” screenplay likely reads like a piece of stilted fanfiction written by a 14-year-old feverishly trying to finish his opus before the end of study hall.
Or, perhaps a little less succinctly (but no less accurate), by someone who saw a few “Star Wars” movies, the odd-numbered “Star Trek” films, and read four sci fi novels, then decided to make his own futuristic sci-fi epic … in a couple of months. As a Jaden Smith vanity project. Without a technical advisor.
Quickly, the plot: Will Smith plays some guy with a made-up badass science-fiction name. Something like Furious Styles. That name is wrong, but I don’t care enough to go look, honestly. I don't really feel bad about that, because it represents roughly the effort Shyamalan put into naming him. Jaden plays his son, who doesn’t know his father all that well because Pops was out being a hero during his formative years.
Jaden wants to be a Ranger like his dad and passes physical muster but wilts under stress. That’s ironic, see, because his dad is known as maybe the only person who has no fear, which works well seeing as how the aliens they fight are blind, but can smell and track human angst. But he also talks slowly, being a little too direct and without contractions. Think Spock, but with fewer interesting character traits.
So dad and son go on a bonding mission, which ends in disaster when their ship crashes on Earth, which is now pretty inhospitable to humans and filled to the brim with man-eating monsters. Oh, and the freaky alien larva Pops had onboard to use as training for the Rangers. But don’t worry … it probably didn’t survive the crash. Definitely not. But look out for it just in case.
The crash has two survivors: Furious (again, not his real name. It's from “Boyz n the Hood”) and his boy, though Pops has two broken legs and, yes, internal bleeding from his femoral artery, which, in real life, would cause him to bleed out in minutes, but in this world gives him … hell, as much time as he needs.
So Pops sends out his kid to travel about 100 kilometers to retrieve the distress beacon from the ship's tail, which snapped off in the crash. By himself. In the world with giant killer everythings and the giant man-eating alien creature. Probably dead, but be careful, just in case.
This leaves junior to venture out into the world by himself, with only his crazy color-changing supersuit and his dad’s “cutlass” — think Darth Maul’s lightsaber if the blades were metal instead of made of lasers.
Putting it mildly, Shyamalan’s world has no internal logic. It’s a world destroyed by human pollution ... and invaded by aliens. Abandoned for 1,000 years, all of the species have evolved to hunt and kill humans … did I mention all of the humans left a millennium ago? With wild temperature shifts that create a jungle-type atmosphere during the day, but as the sun sets, the temperature drops until it’s uninhabitable for a human to live in (so why don’t all of the other animals freeze to death, too?). Oh, but there are hot spots around, meant to provide Jaden with a video game-style checkpoint to get to each night, only the film rarely uses them. Each of these items is important to the story only in certain designated spots.
Everything about this film is manufactured with the express intent to drive the plot or create tension. At one point, Jaden lies to his dad about something that’s a matter of life and death for no discernible reason. Even later when he fesses up, it makes no sense. The narrative choices through the film make no sense, either, and the world itself is nonsensical. At one point, Jaden meets with a dangerous baboon. We know this because Furious (not his real name) has been tracking it with his futuristic animal finder (in fact, he updates Jaden as it approaches ... 30 meters ... 20 ... 10). After Jaden throws a rock at the baboon, suddenly the ape turns around and calls about a dozen of his friends, which the scanners apparently missed.
Oh, and the overarching lesson of the movie? Don’t ever be afraid or you will die. Great message.
If “After Earth” isn’t the worst movie made this year, it’s certainly the laziest and most wasteful. It imprisons the affable Will Smith behind a stoic puss (no kidding, I think he cracks 5/8 of a smile through the entire film) and creates a humorless, bland film with no sense of gravity, wonder or fun whatsoever. Clinical and passionless, “After Earth” is a waste of your time and money.