There’s an urban myth in the writing business: if a book devotes more space on the cover to the author’s name than anything else, then it is trying to sell that book on the strength of the author. Stephen King novels remain the perennial example of this. Books where the author’s name is less obtrusive tend to be sold on the strength of the concept and premise – or, at least, the cover art.
This myth might translate at least partially to promotional material for films. For instance, the effluvial The Great Gatsby could not stop touting its director, Baz Luhrmann, which should really tell you all you need to know about it. But what about promotional material that doesn’t just keep the director’s name small, but utterly conceals it?
After Earth is M. Night Shyamalan’s return to the director’s chair after wandering in the wilderness for three years as penance for The Last Airbender. I’ll confess to being legitimately surprised when, during my pre-emptive research for this film, his name cropped up like some sort of guilty confession. Never since the counter-intelligence operations surrounding D-Day has so much effort been put into concealing something from so many people.
And the real irony? All that effort is wholly wasted. Having M. Night Shyamalan as its director does not help or hinder After Earth in the slightest.
It fails wholly on its own demerits.
Similar to its post-apocalyptic competitor, Oblivion, After Earth commences with an expository rush. A thousand years ago, mankind was forced to flee Earth because of our foolish, foolish environment-destroying ways (oh when will we learn, and when will Hollywood find a better catalyst for our journey to the stars?). However, the colonisation effort of their new world, Nova Prime, is hampered by a war with the Ursa: a vicious species of alien living-weapons that sense purely by scenting human fear. Will Smith plays Cypher Raige (yes: Cypher. Raige.), a soldier who discovered how to suppress his fear and become a ‘ghost’ to the Ursa, allowing him to kill them with abandon and save all mankind.
And people wonder where rumours about Will Smith’s ego come from.
Anyway, that’s just the backstory to the film. Which is good, because After Earth‘s central plot is actually pretty sparse. After triumphing over the Ursa, Cypher attempts to patch up his relationship with his son – soured by years in the military and the death of Cypher’s daughter at the hands of the Ursa – by taking him on a routine spaceflight that just so happens to be transporting a captive Ursa.
Did I mention Cypher’s also two days from retirement?
Naturally, the spaceship crashes on a now-inhospitable Earth, Cypher is grievously wounded and it’s up to his son to live up to his father’s legacy and save them by recovering a MacGuffinous emergency beacon conveniently located a film’s-length away from the crash site.
What’s tragic is that this set-up has some potential. It’s never going to be a landmark in the sci-fi genre, but the journey into adulthood of a guilt-ridden, overshadowed child being mentored by his stern, emotionally crippled father has the makings of an entertaining character piece. One perhaps entertaining enough to overlook the typical bad-science and plot holes that really should have been filled by common sense (why does the future-tech have the appearance and structural integrity of nature furniture, or how come no one has realised that a predator that hunts by fear pheromones can be thwarted with greater ease by a hermetic suit than hack philosophy?).
But the problem is, in order to have a strong character piece, you need strong character actors. I Am Legend demonstrated this perfectly: Will Smith was capable of carrying a relatively simple story on the strength of his acting. Taking a typical action hero and injecting him with a likability, or at least an emotional connection, has been the bread and butter of his career. And yet, with Cypher, it seems that when he learned to repress his fear it came at the price of repressing every other damned emotion in the psychological spectrum. It’s difficult to blame him, in a sense: playing any character who keeps his feelings buried beneath a deep layer of military procedure and detachment is walking a fine line from just playing a bland, unemotional mannequin. There are moments where there is the faintest glimmer of depth in his acting, but for the greater part of the film Smith sadly seems to be putting more effort into a growly, grizzled accent than a simmering emotional cauldron.
His son, Jaden Smith, playing Cypher’s son, Kitai, is placed in the unenviable position of carrying the film. After his performances in The Karate Kid and The Pursuit of Happyness, I was almost convinced that he might actually have the chops to balance the film’s action hijinks with the vulnerability and development his character required. However, like father like son, Jaden is nowhere near the par he has set for himself and, since Kitai is by far and away the primary focus of the film, his inability to deliver is blown up to monolithic proportions: inescapably spread out from beginning to end while his father’s equally disappointing performance is mercifully (for him) sidelined. Most of his lines come out as mumbled slurries of maybe-words delivered atonally by what someone (now might be the time to fashionably heap some blame on M. Night Shyamalan) clearly thought was a scarred, awkward kid with some daddy issues seated deeply alongside a major guilt complex.
The entirety of the blame doesn’t lie with Smith Jr., however. The poor lad is, for the most part, clearly trying his best, but the movie seems insistent upon straitjacketing him. For a film supposedly centred around the shifting dynamics of a fractured father/son relationship, the plot and pacing offer this core concept little opportunity to develop. It’s damned hard to have any sort of meaningful interaction between the two characters when one is shouting instructions as the other is being chased by monkeys/birds/frost (yes, we’re back to The Day After Tomorrow‘s wizard notion of having frost be a pursuant threat). The film’s need to overload its story with artificial and wholly unconvincing jeopardy – over the past thousand years, Earth’s fauna has become entirely man-eating, its climate has random temperature drops, and the atmosphere is nearly unbreathable – squeezes out almost any opportunity for Cypher and Kitai to actually confront what should be the real tension in the film: their relationship. What’s really unfortunate is that in the one scene where they do get a breather between the birds and monkeys to do so, the film almost becomes engaging, and maybe even a little moving.
Acting aside, After Earth provides passable visuals and special effects: Earth post-humanity is pleasantly lush, if lacking the impact of its Oblivion counterpart, and the starship crash scene manages to ramp up the heartbeat admirably. Also of merit is a complete absence of the Shyamalan Twist, although this is offset by the quite idiotic message that Cypher espouses. Turns out, conquering fear is not achieved by confronting your issues and concerns head-on and either finding a solution for them or coming to terms with them, but completely ignoring everything but the present moment. The film terms this practice ‘ghosting’, but this existential act of jamming your head in the sand seems more like Ostriching to me.
It seems that every reviewer has made some comment about the unspoken, underlying purpose of this film. Some have joked that After Earth is the most expensive fifteenth birthday present in human history, while others have murmured about the possible Scientology undertones. I find myself sitting in the moderates’ camp: After Earth is clearly a vehicle for young Jaden Smith, where his father symbolically retreats from the central heroic role and educates the next generation on the supposed craft of blockbuster badassery. I’d question whether this film is a complete creature of nepotism – I really do think Jaden had the credentials to justify his casting, especially given his last on-screen interaction with Smith Sr. – but the hidden meaning isn’t so very hidden.
It seems a shame then that Jaden Smith is bearing the brunt of the flak (rightly) being directed at After Earth. He’s bad in it, certainly, but he’s one element in a mixture that ranges from equally bad to slightly mediocre at best. It’s unfair to single Jaden out for special criticism, and its also incredibly dangerous.
If we don’t watch ourselves, M. Night Shyamalan might get away from this film unscathed and make something else.
Griff Williams
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