"After Earth": A Movie That Scrambles My Feels

There are good movies, mediocre movies, and bad movies. But those labels are averages. A good scene, a bad scene...good acting, terrible writing...bad special effects, but an amazing story...there are all sorts of ways that a movie can average out to one of the three.

Some of my favorite scenes and characters come from terrible movies (Raul Julia in Street Fighter, 4 life). And there are parts of good movies that I absolutely can't stand. Anyone who's heard me talk about Thirteen Days knows I love it, knows I love the political intrigue, the drama, the stakes (the highest stakes EVER, arguably), but Kevin Costner's Boston accent sounds like he's playing a goat, particularly on the vowels. And that takes me out of the movie.

OITHER OF YOU GAWT A CAYN AWEE COULD CHEW?

My point is that usually, I evaluate a movie not just as the sum of its parts, but as a complex interplay of elements, and I'm quick to point out elements that I like over elements I don't, even when the overall film may be a bad one. And then, those various impulses somehow average out to my impression of a movie, although I give more weight to stuff like acting, writing, and production design. But I always at least give credit to elements that capture my attention, even if every other thing in a movie sucks hard.

After Earth seems on its surface like a movie I would like. And there were parts of it I did like. I summed it up to my roommate Adam when I told him, as we were watching the climax, that literally every part of this movie is cool except for Jaden Smith and the plot. And therein lies the rub, and the limits of my charity.

First of all, and the first strike against the movie, is that the trailers lie. They make a big stink out of the fact that everything on Earth has somehow evolved to kill humanity in the time we've been off-planet, despite the fact that humans have not evolved at all in the same amount of time, AND it's only been 1000 years. There is nothing in the movie to suggest that, and the movie never brings this up in any way. But that's okay...the idea is bogus science, it makes no sense at all, so chalk that up to stupid, overzealous marketing. The fact that the movie never mentioned it is a pleasant surprise. Don't worry, though, there's plenty of inescapably bad science in the movie itself.

The reason humanity left Earth is explained in the first scene. We learn that we fucked up the planet so bad we had to strike out for the stars, and the world we chose to colonize was already inhabited. Spoiler alert: they aren't the sharing type. In the war that ensued (that we never really see) the aliens that we fought deployed monsters against us that could smell fear. But here's the thing: they never show the alien masters, only the fear-creatures. That's fucking cool as hell. It's a really cool, mysterious concept. Personally, I'd rather see THAT movie, and THIS movie does almost nothing with that premise but use it as an excuse for the plot. Anyway. Digressing.

Smith the Senior comes in when we learn that he is a high-ranking member of the human military, known as a Ranger, and the first to be able to “ghost”. “Ghosting” involves feeling no fear, so that you become invisible to the fear-smelling monsters that can detect fear pheromones. His son, Jaden, is generally a puss, as explained by the head of the Ranger training program. He does well in examinations and PE but freezes when under actual field scenarios. In an attempt to toughen Jaden up and attempt to bond with him, Smith Sr. takes him on a space field trip to a training camp while their ship carries one of the fear-smelling monsters for training purposes. You can imagine how well that journey goes.

One thing I have to point out is that Will Smith's character in this is named Cypher Raige. GET IT? GET...IT!? BECAUSE...CYPHER IS ANOTHER WAY OF EXPRESSING “ZERO”...AND RAIGE IS LIKE RAGE...SO HE DISPLAYS ZERO EMOTION...HE DISPLAYS...IT'S IN HIS NAME....GET IT!? GET IT!? GET IT!? GET IT!? GET IT!? GET IT!?

Fork in the brain...Fork in the brain...

They crash on Earth, which somehow...Christ...I can't even do this. Not even my sarcasm can defend me from the stupidity of this movie. This movie is like chugging a 40 of King Cobra and sticking a bottle rocket in your ass and lighting it. It's that stupid.

To start, they crash in an area that looks like a rainforest, or at least an area with heavy vegetation. Now...I don't know how much you, the reader, know about plants. But you probably know that most of them go away in the winter; that the plants in the rainforest aren't the same plants that are in colder climates. And that one of the reasons rain forests are so heavily planted is that the temperature is pretty stable in them, and along with the moisture and soil and amount of rainfall, that temperature is pretty conducive to plant growth.

Will Smith explains to his fakereal son that Earth has somehow...SOMEHOW...now developed dramatic shifts in temperature, so that it's freezing cold at night. Now, just that verbal description doesn't make sense. Just hearing those words isn't even a thing. Because first of all, even though places on Earth DO have swings like that (not nearly as dramatic though), they're deserts. They're places where ALMOST NOTHING GROWS. But no...no, we actually see one of these swings in action...and we literally WATCH as fucking frost and ice RUN DOWN A MOUNTAIN LIKE A FLOOD, FREEZING THE PLANTS IN A RAINFOREST, and finally FREEZING JADEN SMITH AS WE WATCH. THAT ISN'T HOW ANYTHING EVER WORKS.

Number one. No plants that we see would survive temperature shifts so rapid that the environment goes from rain forest temperatures to below freezing in the space of a minute (LITERALLY A MINUTE).

"This is actually more retarded than The Day After Tomorrow." -Me, saying something I thought I never would

Number two. In order for Jaden Smith to go from not frozen to frozen in less than a minute, it would probably really, really damage his tissues, and probably kill him pretty fast.

Number three. Earth's orbit, thank God, is a pretty stable, regular one. And nowhere on Earth right now do we have temperature shifts like those in After Earth. In order for there to possibly be temperature shifts on Earth of the kind seen in After Earth, something dramatic would have to happen to Earth's rotation, orbital shape, or axis tilt. And anything that would have such an effect on Earth in only 1000 years (relatively short on the galactic timeframe) would be forceful enough to seriously and noticeably fuck up Earth on a massive scale, and it seems basically the same in the movie as it is now, only with bigger eagles.

So basically, this movie beats up and violates science and leaves it bleeding by the side of the road. Honestly, that would be enough for me to recommend that any person who knows much of anything about the way the world works should not see it. But here's the thing. I really, really like the production design of this movie. It's so cool and alien and unique...it's what I can see humanity developing in a thousand years. 

On the surface it seems really weird and organic and reptilian, but unmistakably human, like if a bunch of hippies designed spacecraft and military bases to be “green”. But it looks so unique that I fell in love with it. The suits, the bases, the ships, the equipment. I even kind of fell in love with the weird-ass Mid-Atlantic/British/Southern accents everyone is sporting (although it doesn't help that they're horribly inconsistent). Just the English language has evolved to be barely recognizable when compared to Renaissance or Middle English, and that was less than a thousand years ago. This movie honestly spends more time than most GOOD sci-fi movies making a future feel suitably futuristic and far-flung. And I geeked out over that. It's the little touches and the background stuff that I like about After Earth. And that brings me to the parts I didn't like...Jaden Smith, and the plot.

I've got nothing personally against Jaden Smith...although it seems that his dad tosses him films and franchises like other dads would toss their teenagers the keys to the family car.

But Jaden Smith is not his father. And he cannot carry a movie like this yet on his own. I didn't see The Karate Kid or The Pursuit of Happyness, but in this movie, he's just kind of a little bitch. And I'm sorry for the phrasing, but that's what he is. He has this constant punchable expression on his face, like he's always on the verge of crying or voiding his bowels. And that expression seems, along with frustration and sadness, to be the only emotion he can convey. Whether that has to do with the direction or his acting ability, I don't know. And if he had his father to play off of more, it might be a different story all together.

That brings me to the other thing that sunk the movie for me: the plot. Its main thrust involves Will Smith getting injured and rendered immobile as soon as they crash on Earth, and Jaden having to trudge through the jungle fighting beasties and his own bitchiness in order to activate a beacon that will bring help. Every other person on their ship dies in the first third of the movie. And with Smith Sr. immobilized, it fast becomes The Jaden Show, and that is not a show worth watching yet. Jaden simply isn't a good enough actor or charismatic enough to carry a movie by himself.

And to make matters worse, Will Smith is effectively neutered throughout the movie. Not just physically, but acting-wise. Obviously, he knew that if he brought his full acting skills and charm to bear, he would blow his son out of the water, and this was supposed to be The Jaden Show. So in After Earth, he basically becomes nothing like the Will Smith that we know: a barely-emoting, scowly dick who can hardly relate to his son or his wife and displays almost no humor or warmth. He has exactly one joke in this movie, an incredibly wry, deadpan one, and for a brief second, it seems like he's back. And then it never happens again.

Please? Just one "WELCOME TO EARTH?" For me?

This film just has problems with emotion. On a plot level, on a meta level. Jaden's character, if you couldn't guess, figures out how to “ghost” in the climax and take down the escaped fear-beastie that his ship was carrying when it crashed. But his progression from whining bitchstronaut to emotionless badass is almost entirely unearned. For the majority of the film he's a moody, sniveling kid, who throws tantrums and generally doesn't seem at all cut out for being a Ranger.

Now, you may say that a lot of other films use that sort of framework, and many other films telegraph their plot elements as blatantly as After Earth does. And you're right. Plenty of movies have the same trope...a well-meaning but screw-up rookie finally manages to, through hard work, do right and overcome his limitations. However, After Earth makes clear from the very first act that Jaden is only trying to be a Ranger to give his dad something to be proud of. Contrast that with a movie like Rocky...he's an underdog, but he trains and becomes a fantastic boxer for himself, because he finds it personally fulfilling, not because Mickey or Adrian would be proud of him.

So we kind of don't root for Jaden to be a good little emotionless Ranger...I personally, when I could be brought to care, was rooting for him to be his own man and ignore his dad's legacy, or for him to just lay down and die. That's the biggest problem. I was rooting more for a random giant eagle that had two scenes in the whole movie than I was for Jaden's character. And when he's a scaredy-cat for the entire movie, gets one scene of motivation from his sister's ghost, then suddenly masters the ability to be without fear at the end, it is unearned. And forced. And stupid.

All of this is not even touching on the one thing hanging over this entire movie, the thing everyone talked about, the thing you think every time the movie cuts to Jaden Smith over more interesting things...the n-word. Nepotism.

Like I said before, Will Smith has this weird fixation on making his kids into stars as big as he is. He tosses his kids careers like they're bar mitzvah presents. Willow got her hair-whipping song, Jaden got some kinda rapping thing and some starring roles. And After Earth feels like the culmination of that nepotistic streak: “My son's gonna have a lucrative franchise just like dear ol' dad.” Every thing that could have been good or worthy of attention in this movie is constantly avoided in favor of focusing on Jaden and Will. 

I can almost hear Mnight or some other writer going, “Hey, so, this whole backstory about an alien war is pretty interesting, and we never really delve into the masters of these fear-smelling things. Maybe instead of a father-son thing, we could d-” “NO...NO...JADEN...THIS IS HIS TIME TO SHINE. I WANNA DO SOMETHING WITH MY SON.” “Well, maybe we could have some other characters, like, really brusque military types, and maybe they don't like Jaden at first, but then they bond and help him get to-” “NOPE...JADEN. OOOONLY JADEN. IT'S ME AND MY SON. WE'RE BONDING, GET IT? MAKE SURE THOSE OTHER GUYS DIE BEFORE ACT TWO.”

Interesting characters, we hardly knew ye.

I'm kidding...Will Smith never shouts. Not in meetings. He seems like a nicer guy than that. But there is just this weird, inescapable, elitist-nepotist vibe surrounding the whole movie. Like Will Smith forgot what fun is, and that not everyone in the world wants to love Jaden the same way he loves him, and more importantly, that not everybody should. Now, it's great that he does! Every child should be so lucky as to have a father that provides for them and gives a Hollywood career out to his kids like it's brand new baseball glove. But I don't want to watch a kid who clearly isn't ready for or capable of having a leading-man career, especially in a movie where he's basically one of two characters, and the only one the movie really focuses on.

But God...the production design, the world, every character that isn't Will and Jaden...I really, really wanted to get to know them more, and I loved the look and feel of their future society. I guess that's why this movie really scrambles my feels. It's like there's a really good movie, or a good concept, or a good SOMETHING waiting to break out of it. I WANT that film to break out of After Earth. But nepotism, mediocre filmmaking, and mediocre and miscalculated acting manage to scuttle that ship before it even gets out of the dock, and the entire thing ends up stillborn. And I swear, that's as close to making an AfterBirth joke as I'm ever going to get.