463. After Earth (2013)

Starring: Jaden Smith, Will Smith, David Denman

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Running Time: 100 mins

After Earth is an American film about a father and son who crash land on Earth, a thousand years after it has been deserted by mankind, and the boy must fight against the dangers of this planet in order to save his father.

Basically, this film was really dull. There was very little that was at all impressive about it. It may have had some cool visual effects, but apart from that, I really struggled to get at all interested in the story or the characters, not to mention the fact that there was an atrocious central performance by Jaden Smith.

Although I’m a big fan of the survival stories, this film just isn’t as impacting as its genre normally is. The main problem with it is that it feels very little like a survival or a fight against the elements, rather a guided tour of a future Earth by Mr. Will Smith, and that really takes away any excitement from the film at all.

Yes, I did enjoy the visual effects, but once again, this film was an example of style over substance. It may have been quite exciting to look at, but even that didn’t have much of an impact at all on making the film any more exciting.

One difference between this and something like Avatar that makes it somewhat bearable is the fact that there’s barely anything in it. In Avatar, there’s a painful message being shoved down your throat for three hours, but here, it’s such an empty and shallow story that there isn’t any sort of pain you get while watching it, just extreme boredom.

Something else that I was appalled by in this film was Jaden Smith’s terrible performance as the main character. He failed to convey any of the fear in the main boy’s eyes whatsoever, and just seemed like a pathetic little boy running around a forest for 100 minutes.

In fact, this film pretty much mirrors Jaden Smith’s acting career. Being guided around and pushed by Will Smith for the whole time, failing at doing anything well constantly, and being extremely annoying to watch is exactly what happens both in this film and real life.

Anyway, this gets a 4.1, because although it had that cool CGI, it was an unbelievably dull and empty story that leaves you completely unimpressed.