Father and son.  Is there anything more adorable?  Well, maybe a puppy licking ice cream.  But really, the theme of father and son is something that tends to warm the cockles of anyone’s heart.  And since warm cockles is a good thing (so I’ve heard; as I don’t know what a cockle is, I’ll take that as truth) wouldn’t the team of Jaden Smith and his father Will be just a cute fest of awesome?  Well….

Cute fest?  Yes.  Absolutely.  Awesome?  Um, not so much.  Their new movie After Earth isn’t bad.  The problem is After Earth isn’t particularly good either.  Sorry M. Night Shyamalan, you’ll have to look to your next directorial effort for redemption from The Last Airbender.  Or The Lady In The Water.  Or The Happening.  Perhaps a vacation to rejuvenate is in order?  I hear stone massages are the bomb.

Speaking of bombs, After Earth takes place after we humans crapped up the planet we call home.  And much like locusts, we then flew off to someplace else (and probably crapped that up too), leaving Earth to go do it’s own thing.  A thousand years later, Earth is Darwin’s theory come true, with all sorts of evolved beasties turning our once habitable planet into a danger zone of the highest order.  Heck, humans can’t even breathe the air comfortably anymore, as Earth’s atmosphere is too low in oxygen to support the current crop of folks.  Meanwhile, on the planet humans now call home, there are dangerous beasties too; aliens called Ursa that can carve us up like deli meat and sniff us out based on our fear are hunted by the Ranger Corps.  Nobody embodies the Ranger Corps better than living legend Cypher Raige (Will Smith).  Problem is, his young wanna-be Ranger son Kitai (Jaden Smith) lacks the discipline necessary to “Ghost” — turning off fear so the alien beasties can’t find you — and isn’t making the grade.  But Cyper decides to bring Kitai on a training mission or something (honestly, it’s tough to care enough to remember) and when things go wonky, guess where they crash land?  With a captured Ursa on board?  That totally gets loose?  With Kitai the only one that can save his dad?  Yeah, you’re absolutely right.

 

The main problem with After Earth is that there isn’t a real father-son bond in the film.  In fact, there’s barely any bonding at all.  Blame that on director Shyamalan and co-screenwriter Gary Whitta.  In making Cyper the best “Ghost” in all the land, they also removed any other emotion the guy would ever have.  This turns Will Smith into a blank, emotionless automaton that barely registers concern or compassion for his son.  And with Will and Jaden’s interplay in The Pursuit of Happyness, we know that these two can work extremely well together.  This isn’t an ensemble piece movie, in fact Smith & Smith are pretty much the only people onscreen for the bulk of the film.  But appearances by Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda) and Zoë Kravitz (yes, Lenny’s daugher) as Cyper’s wife and daughter are touching.  Mostly because unlike Will, they’re allowed to feel something.

The film itself is wonderfully done.  Cinematographer Peter Suschitzky manages to evoke that same sense of realistic wonder that he did so well in The Empire Strikes Back and A Dangerous Method.  The visual effects — including a big-ass evolved hawk that plays a pivotal role during Kitai’s mission — are handled by several companies, (including Pixomondo, Tippett Studio, The Third Floor and Incessant Rain Studios) and they’ve all gone above and beyond.  But the movie itself feels hollow, as if it’s just shine on an empty bubble.  And I really wanted to like this movie.  Hey, futuristic earth after it’s destruction, combined with aliens and a good ol’ father and son team?  I really rooted for this film.  But less than halfway in I was wondering if anyone would notice if I left early.  I’ve only done that once before in the years I’ve been watching movies.  Damn shame, that is.

There’s a cute little back and forth between Cyper and Kitai at the very end of After Earth.  And I loved it.  So much so that I thought fondly of the film immediately afterward.  But as the entirety of the film washed over me later, that bit of cute interplay isn’t enough to wash 1 1/2 hours of barely mediocre off of this film.  The largest problem with the after-effects of After Earth isn’t what’s going to happen to Shyamalan’s career; that’s pretty much already tanked.  It’s how much of Shyamalan’s death throes will rub off on Will Smith’s career.  Let’s hope Will’s next film (Akiva Goldsman’s Winter’s Tale) brings good tidings.