Late to the Party: After Earth (2013)

Get used to this sad face the whole damn movie.

I don't think I'm surprising anyone by saying this film is awful. You can smell it a mile away. Shyamalan as the director should be the first clue. Honestly, I think he is very misguided as a director.  The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Lady in the Water, Signs (yes, TINFOIL HEAD SIGNS) were pretty good. Why did he go off the deep end so hard? He had so much potential by creating (somewhat) original stories but not executing them that well. Decent actors giving terrible convoluted dialogues, bad expositions, confusing resolutions all seem to become a pattern. It is pretty sad that he has become the butt of the joke in the film industry.  Second clue is that it is a vanity project. That's what I called this film when it first came out, VANITY PROJECT. Take one of the most popular actors of all time and add his son into it so he can gain the same attention. Brilliant. I don't see how that could fail. To be fair, Pursuit of Happyness was okay. Jaden Smith was still a kid at the time so he gets a pass and Will Smith was genuine. However, I really do not think Jaden was put on this planet to be an actor. He is AWFUL. I can't say that it is because he is so young because there has been child actors that created great performances at the same age. I really had no respect for him after The Karate Kid remake, but that is a whole other story of awful. 

After Earth takes place 1,000+ years in the future. Kitai Raige is a fucking loser of a kid and his father, Cypher Raige (really?) is trying really hard to be the most stoic man possible. After failing to becoming a  ranger, Cypher takes Kitai along on some space adventure with the rejected extras from Star Trek. Asteroids happen, they crash, leaving them stranded on a planet known as EAAAAARTTHH. Cypher is injured and unable to walk and sends Kitai across the planet to the other remains of the ship. Along the way, Kitai encounters ferocious beasts that look funny from either evolution or just bad CGI. There is also an alien space monster and some philosophical crap about not showing fear.

This is not the worst film of all the time. I don't see it becoming popular with how bad it is either. The biggest flaw is that it is boring. Nothing happened that grabbed my attention or made it memorable. The other flaw is that the characters have no personality at all. Why do the characters have to be so bland to show that they have "no fear"? They can still have a damn personality to make them likable. Having them give their dialogue out in monotone does not set the time period, establish their character, or make them look cool. They just look ridiculous and frankly I don't care if they live or die.

The entire time I'm watching this I could think of all the other films it is similar to. Here's my list

• Avatar
• The Hunger Games
• Predator
• Star Trek
• The Lion King
• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (Specifically that one)

As you can see, I enjoy playing this game.
The only thing I can say that was good about this film was the ending when they were reunited. I'm not calling spoilers because you know they are going to get back together after being separated. They have to be. Other than that, it wasn't anything special. The costumes didn't wow me. The sets were trying too hard to be futuristic but looked like an Ikea showroom instead. The special effects could have been better. The convoluted Shyamalan dialogue, while not as bad as other films like The Happening, was still present. Will Smith tried too hard to be cool; like Wild Wild West cool. Jaden Smith was just whiny and irrational and therefore made him a very unlikeable character. I really hope he either gets better in acting or just finds something else. Watch it only if you run out of NyQuil.