After Earth

The kind of impression that M Night Shyamalan’s After Earth creates in the audience through the promos is somewhat a depiction of a possible danger in the future. But what sadly happens on screen is a very simple and typical motivational story that doesn’t have any solid grip in its content to make the movie special by any means. The story written by Will Smith doesn’t explore much of the backdrop used and ends up as a disappointing experience.

The plot here is set in a backdrop where mankind has evaded Earth as it was conquered by the alien forces. General Cypher Raige is the commander of the ranger corps who is protecting humanity from the Ursas. On his last voyage he takes his son Kitai, but sadly the spaceship crash lands on the surface of earth. Only Kitai and Cypher manages to escape but Cypher breaks both his legs. The emergency rescue beacon was broken and the second beacon was in the tail section of the spaceship which crash landed almost 100 KM away from the head. As Cypher can’t move, it’s up to Kitai to make it to the tail. With earths almost all creatures evolved to kill humans, how Kitai manages to complete this mission is what After Earth all about.

Well, the plot is too simple and they haven’t really gone in deep. The detailing given by Shyamalan through the script was too much. It wasn’t the right tempo for the movie as it had a very weak emotional backbone. The ghost thing seems to be very formulaic as they wanted to make Jaden’s character evolve to a next level. The too much of technical aids kind of takes away the charm of the main protagonist’s efforts. The film never really has a moment to make the audience think seriously about the circumstances and ends up as a dull experience.

On screen, Will Smith doesn’t have much of a challenge in portraying his role as Cypher. Well the movie is somewhat written for Jaden and he has done a fair job. The actor needs to work on the dialog delivery in my view. Rest of the cast doesn’t have much of a screen time but have done their part nicely.

In the making, direction is quite dull. Night somewhat tries his typical style of capturing emotions and sadly this movie never really required that much of zooming. He couldn’t setup any high octane sequences to make the journey look hard. The script was finding it hard to explain things. VFX wasn’t that great as it stood out at many occasions without a proper blending.  Cinematography is cool.

Overall, it’s a disappointing cat and mouse game that has no charm. I am giving the movie a generous 2/5 and big thumbs down. Danger is real and watching this movie is really your choice.