REVIEW: After Earth (12A)

Reviewer Gavin Miller takes a look at Will Smith and son Jayden’s venture and finds it a lost opportunity.
Jaden Smith stars in Columbia Pictures' "After Earth," also starring Will Smith.Jaden Smith stars in Columbia Pictures' "After Earth," also starring Will Smith.
Jaden Smith stars in Columbia Pictures' "After Earth," also starring Will Smith.

The best thing I can say about this sci-fi action effort is it isn’t as bad as the critics were saying – but it is an undoubtedly lost opportunity.

The father-and-son movie vehicle of Jaden and Will Smith is still just about watchable fare if you can get around the extremely wooden acting and clichéd scripting.

Will Smith’s strictly stoic super soldier father Cipher Raige is completely charisma-free – which is weird for such a usually colourful actor – leading to likeability problems.

With Cipher struggling to connect with son Kitai (Jaden), he takes him on a bonding mission, only for their shuttle to crashland on Earth.

The problem is humans have long left the now uninhabitable planet and to make things worse, Cipher’s got two broken legs, and the emergency beacon is 100km away.

To top it all off, a creature they were transporting has escaped.

Cue the expected father and son emotional attachment, as Cipher has to guide his son through the treacherous wilderness.

But it’s sadly done in such a generic – albeit still engaging-enough – way, that the journey doesn’t really bring an exciting destination.

Will Smith may be the only one to come out of this relatively unscathed, but After Earth looks like ending up in movie oblivion.

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