Critic Reviews

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.

Won't change your world, but it's attractive and Smith the Elder, lowering his voice to subterranean James Earl Jones levels, delivers a shrewd minimalist performance. His son may get there yet.

In truth, despite more corn than Mel Gibson grows on his farm in "Signs" (another Shyamalan effort), After Earth is worth a look.

That there are no surprises (jumps, yes, surprises, no) should surprise no one – Will Smith movies must uplift the human spirit and reaffirm our best instincts while reassuring us that our ticket money has been well invested.

Jaden Smith takes centre stage in a futuristic rites of passager that plays like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone. Although "Oblivion" narrowly remains this summer’s better ruined-Earth actioner.

Shyamalan’s sensibility may not be enough to turn After Earth into a great (or even very good) film, but it does yield interesting — and at times strikingly realized — results.

The movie takes off from a concept as basic as a videogame, and it sticks to that concept, without surprise.

The film progresses to the point where it feels less like father and son, and more like a young boy listening to an inspirational audiobook.

M. Night Shyamalan has directed movies that are surprising, hokey, suspenseful, sentimental, clever, touching or cheesy. But until After Earth, he hadn’t made any that are dull from end to end.

There’s nothing more to this movie than the set-up. Even though Cypher is slowly bleeding to death, and Kitai is running out of oxygen capsules that allow him to breathe in the toxic air, there’s no sense of urgency, either. At least Shyamalan, sensing the thinness of the material, doesn’t stretch things out.