Title – After Earth (2013)
Director – M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense)
Cast – Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Sophie Okonedo, Zoe Kravitz
Plot – 1000 years into the future and humans have taken up residence on other planets after seemingly destroying Earth as a habitable planet. Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) wants to be like his fearless alien slaying father Cypher (Will Smith) and when there space ship crash lands onto Earth he must learn to overcome his fears and prove to himself and his father that he to can be a hero.
“You’re still in that box. It’s time to come out”
Review by Eddie on 9/12/2013
Dear Will Smith
We know good sir that you in fact can act, represented in such fine films as Ali and Six Degrees of Seperation and that when on form you can make average movies impressively average as witnessed in such jaunts as I Am Legend and I Robot but dear sir your reputation will be forever tarnished by this dire and ego driven project. It’s nice that you came up with a story as an allergy to your beloved scientology but the general public do not feel at all passionate about your cause and to use the vehicle as an excuse to give your talentless child another undeserved lead role is just a slap straight across movie fans cheeks. Surely after years in the business of Hollywood you would be able to sense when a project is doomed from the start and judging by arguably your worst on screen performance you must of felt largely responsible but clearly your judgement here was clouded by personal gain and that is a very sad state of affairs, a state that you may perhaps never fully recover from.
Dear Jaden Smith
You’ve got lucky twice kid with the sappy Pursuit of Happiness and the unneeded yet weirdly tolerable Karate Kid remake but you should of stopped while you were ahead. It’s lovely and what not that your father feels the need to continue to push you into roles you have not earned and into a career that after this effort pretty much should never ever happen. Your role in After Earth is that of the work of someone trying way to hard and will go down in modern movie history as having one of the worst accents committed to film. Scenes of emotion that are there to portray love between our two space explorers and father and son duo are made laughable by some horrid acting and your career may never get over the speed hump that is a scene of you being chased by a giant eagle.
Dear M. Night Shyamalan
Why oh why did you play us for fools? Here we were years ago with The Sixth Sense thinking we had found the new king of thrills, an original voice who had the ability to write the script, make the film and direct the actors to greatness but since then what have you done? Signs, Unbreakable and The Village for all good without being great but dear Sir what on earth was Lady in the Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender and now this dribble? Please oh please show us soon there is something left to give or otherwise all hope that you will ever become good again will fade. After Earth should of screamed “stay away from me” yet you took it and directed it so averagely and without flair that it’s almost as if you were just counting the balance of your bank.
If by chance you’re wondering if After Earth is as bad as you have heard it is, like a make you want to cry bad. It’s a movie that whilst costing millions upon millions to make and market has not one memorable set piece or redeeming feature to recommend it. Just be thankful it has a few hearty (and not meant to be) chuckles due to it’s B grade effects, laughable acting, dire story and horrible costumes. Take a knee, hire it out and laugh at the ego falling out of the screen and into your lounge room.
Half a rock throwing baboon out of 5
Related articles
- What The Hell Happened To Will Smith? (buzzfeed.com)
- After Earth (thearchedeyebrows.wordpress.com)
- After Earth Movie Review (worldenvisioned.wordpress.com)
Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys) 
Hahaha yes! Finally! This vents the frustration so well. So utterly pathetic.
Just a dire effort and sad excuse for a movie.
Eddie
I went to this movie with an open mind, but just couldn’t get past how dull it was.
I to thought I could enjoy it Apollo, surely it could not be as bad as people said it was – sadly it was worse! Ekk….
Eddie
So true.
Well said! due to the Smith family involvement it is of course easy to hate this film, but all hatred is deserved as not only is it a Smith family vanity project, but it is so boring with a quite frankly embarrassing script. What ever did happen to M. Night Shyamalan?
He went off the rails in a bad bad way! A real shame because he does have some serious talent, Will Smith is in danger of falling off the rails to sadly.
Eddie
Best review of this movie I’ve read by far.
Cheers Serial 🙂 A little different to usual but felt like I had to vent in some varied way about this nasty piece of Summer entertainment.
Eddie
Good review Eddie. In all honesty, I didn’t hate this flick like others. Sure, it was dull and under-cooked, but considering what M. Night has done in the past decade or so, this looks like a freakin’ masterpiece!
What’s his worst flick you reckon man? I have never partaken in Airbender and Lady In Water whilst bad had some moments of goodness and I always love a Giamatti leading role.
Happening was a strange experience that was for sure!
Eddie
It’s practically a three-way tie, honestly. Maybe the Happening is worse. Then again, maybe Airbender is. Lady in the Water was “watchable crap”, to say the least, but those other two will just murder brain cells.
Without seeing it I just have a feeling Airbender is worse – ruining someone else’s material is so much worse than ruining your own ha.
Eddie
Great review, and a great example of why we (bloggers) need to watch bad movies. No, it’s not about integrity, it’s because bad movies inspire some great review writing!
Nothing like a bad movie to slay Jase 🙂 This one provoked me to some form of anger towards the Smiths and Night that is for sure.
Eddie
That bad, huh?
Mate so so bad, worth a look just to witness it.
Eddie
[SPOILERS btw will be included] Good grief, this was a steaming pile of yak dung! Oozing nepotism from every pore… and somehow still no father-and-son onscreen chemistry from a real father-and-son!? Horrible, horrible acting from Will Smith – who has starred in such fun and much loved by me sci-fi fare as Independence Day and Men In Black. As for that insufferable brat of his (have you read some of his tweets?), that boy shouldn’t be allowed out of the house without his padded helmet. And as for M. Night Shamblesman! After the way he raped “Last Airbender”, he still managed to outdo himself with this putrescence!!! So much fail, man, fail on every level. A suit that changes colour FOR NO REASON! Random hot patches while the rest of the world freezes solid at night? WTF? Basic biology anyone? Everything here has evolved to kill humans? Really? So danger! What fright! Much scary! And yet it’s the alien beasty that is the big (pffft) scary thingy – AND IT CAN”T SEE, HEAR, OR SMELL YOU!!!!!! Only sense your fear!!!! FFS!!!!! Rage! Etc…
Mate love it, I feel a book could be published on your hatred towards this film 🙂
Eddie
I think my expectations on this were soooo low that when I finally saw it, I wasn’t terribly angry at it. It’s not good, it’s not average but I don’t think it’s as terrible as, say, The Happening. Shyamalan’s 2nd worst film though still is not good. Loved the layout of your review, great stuff!
Cheers Gene, I was surprised that even with my very very low expectations of the film I still couldn’t enjoy it on any level, I normally really enjoy Smiths work to.
Eddie
How did this even get half a score?
I think I felt sorry for the CGI baboons?
Eddie
Haha, nice review! The first time I saw ads for this thing I kept wondering if it was a real movie. I love Hollywood and all its glamour, but sometimes Tinseltown’s money-grubbing mindset is just too much. This is just yet another nail in the coffin of M. Night’s once promising career.
True Celtic, that coffin is about to be placed in the ground unless he unveils a quality film again in the next year or so.
Eddie
I’m still going to check it out one of these days…
Good luck Action you’ll need it my friend!
Eddie
It’s hard not to go in with low expectations with this point.
Lower that bar as low as it can go, then find a way to lower it even that little bit more ha 🙂
Eddie
Good job Eddie love this review!
Hey Jaden Smith it just doesn’t work. Go back to school.
I can imagine him living off his family wealth until the end of days, lucky blitter.
Eddie
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thanks for the great nasty snarky review. i have avoided the film for several reasons: I think Shyamalan’s best days are long, long behind him (how does he still get work? Although I will give him kudos for producing the decently scary “Devil”) I find Will Smith fairly insufferable, and he has made some poor film choices (hard to think, but only a couple of years ago, he was hailed in a very influential magazine as “the last movie star”) . And I think young Jaden can’t act. Not “he’s a bad actor”; i think he CANNOT act.
Also, can you fellows please learn how to spell “allegory”, or are you just allergic to scientology (in which case: who isn’t?)
Mate your going to have to become the J and E editor I think, I am readily admitting to being a pretty lacking English student when it comes to the written word! Although I am pretty allergic to Scientology.
In regards to the film you’re on the right track if you never see it, Jaden should become a back up singer for his sister and it does feel like Will Smith has all of a sudden gone down hill very fast.
Eddie
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