Starring: Will Smith, Jaden Smith
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: **
What if you are stranded on earth a thousand years after humans like you have abandoned it to set up abode in a new planet? M. Night Shymalan’s latest film is a sci-fi based on this seemingly tantalising premise. So you have Will and Jaden Smith crash-landing on earth and Jaden going on an adventure, fighting fearsome creatures to save his injured father. There are supposedly deep and philosophical undertones here. Like the feeling of fear. On how it can be the reason for an individual’s downfall and how one can liberate and atone oneself by overcoming, read ghosting, it. At another level, you could read the film as a text on what might become of earth in the years to come. However, at it’s most simple, After Earth is a good old father-son tale, of their guilts and grudges, of misunderstandings overcome in the face of adversity and of a son redeeming his father’s honour, and, in turn, his own. All of this might sound perfectly wonderful on paper but in juggling with these purportedly profound elements in heavy-duty VFX, Shymalan ends up delivering a lumbering and lacklustre film. Parts of it are quite all right but the sum of them is too leaden to hold and sustain one’s interest.
