After Earth (2013)

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: USA

Review: “After Earth” is the confirmation that M.Night Shyamalan is losing strength and confidence behind the cameras. His first hits, “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable”, made us foresee a promising and solid career as director and writer, but the lack of quality in his next steps made him fall in a category of unbearable. “After Earth” delivers a very poor sci-fi experience, telling the adventures of Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and his son Kitai (Will Smith’s real son Jaden), when their spaceship crashed on Earth, leaving them exposed to a group of rival aliens. Cypher ended up with the two legs broken and Kitai, as their only hope, will have to fight to retrieve a backup beacon and avoid death. Shyamalan, inspired by an unsophisticated story by Will Smith, was incapable to create a firm pace or any kind of interest with a bunch of animals’ attacks that seemed more an insensate animation than a sci-fi adventure. The monotone voices repeating military orders, the stupid facial expressions of its characters, and the miserable scenes containing special effects, made “After Earth” absolutely ridiculous. With the boredom installed and several laughable scenes that were meant to be taken seriously, this is one of the worst films I’ve seen this year and a complete failure in terms of script, performances, and execution.