After Earth

After Earth is ultimately too thin of a story to support all of its grandiose embellishments, but so what? It's better to try to pack every moment with beauty and feeling than to shrug and smirk. The film takes the characters and their feelings seriously, and lets its actors give strong, simple performances.

Though it's meant to be pulse-pounding, After Earth is a lethargic slog.

Despite the Smith family’s association with Scientology, which unmistakably informs this tale’s belief system (“Fear is a Choice”), as well as its shaky attempts at mythic patterning, it is in no way the laughable shambles that John Travolta’s infamous "Battlefield Earth" was.

The film is repetitive and not as suspenseful at it tries to be. Often gorgeous, sometimes fascinating, it is ultimately unwieldy and unsurprising. It fails as a Smith-family project. Jaden Smith, who was fine in "The Karate Kid," is flat here.

Running, or stumbling, only 90 minutes, After Earth may lack the neck-swiveling awfulness of Shyamalan’s "The Last Airbender," but it quickly sinks in its logorrheic solemnity. The movie makes "Oblivion" seem as jolly a romp as "Spaceballs," and gives neither Shyamalan nor Smith much to smile about.

Surprise — this bad dream is for real.

Summer 2013 has its first bomb, and sadly, it’s landed right on Will Smith.

Really good film. It has elements to it that actually made me talk to the screen, I love this film. A few parts of the film make me think its a bit far fetched but apart from that I love it!

It has more flaws (uninteresting characters, slow pacing, small storyline, predictability) than strengths but After Earth is focused on its plot and offers enough visual thrills to qualify as a passable movie.

I don't understand why so many people are hating on this film, and why it is getting such a poor rating. It's nothing special, sure, but it's not bad. I see people complaining about Jaden's acting, but I thought it was fine (it wasn't outstanding, and there is room for improvement, obviously, but there was nothing wrong with it. Also, he's just a kid, give him a break), and so was Will's. The effects were nice (I won't go into details, as that would cause spoilers, but there is one scene in particular that is pretty awesome), and I liked the story. The one thing I have to complain about is that it would have been a much better and cooler movie if there was a more varied and larger number of obstacles and challenges for Kitai to overcome. For example he could have come across a whole lot more of various types of creatures. There was even one scene where I feel they completely left out a good potential confrontation. But oh well. Anyway, I enjoyed the movie, and I'm sure there are many others like me who will as well.

Uhm this movie just really fails for me because Jaden Smith is a terrible actor.

Aside from some impressive shots and special effects, theres really nothing redeemable about this movie. The script is lackluster in almost everyway, Screenplay is even worse, Jaden Smith isn't really the best actor and Will Smith, one of Hollywood's best and sought after stars shows almost no emotion almost to the point as to where it seems like he doesn't want to be there. His natural charisma he often has on display in his films is so clearly held back that its almost sad to see him relegated to a supporting role in a vanity project for the sake of helping his sons career.