It's Official: Summer Blockbuster Season Is Here With Will Smith's Entry: After Earth!

The Good: Imaginative concept, Decent franchise potential, Effects
The Bad: Stiff/awkward acting, Somewhat monodirectional character development, Details
The Basics: Will Smith’s 2013 entry into Summer Blockbuster Season is After Earth which he tries to set up as a franchise for his actor son, Jaden.


Ever since Independence Day (reviewed here!), the quintessential staple actor for Summer Blockbuster Season and its formulaic attempts to rake in the dollars that people inexplicably spend on big budget summer movies is Will Smith. That’s fine; he’s a wonderful actor and while summer blockbusters seldom use him for his full range and ability, he is a proven entertainer who brings energy and emotion to (almost) every one of his roles, which draws audiences. For 2013, he co-wrote and developed the project After Earth, a platform utilizing both him and his actor son Jaden.

After Earth is hitting cinemas this weekend and the buzz behind it has been astonishingly bad. For one reason or another (maybe lack of advertising?) After Earth is not finding its expected audience and the news for the movie at the box office has been bad all weekend. It looks like it will debut at #3, behind Now You See Me and I mention that only because as the box office estimates have been revised downward all weekend, it actually made me want to see the film. Prior to the bad news for the movie, I had seen the movie poster, but otherwise knew nothing about the film (though I recalled seeing an After Earth book in the bookstore recently, so I was surprised to learn that the film is the basis for the emerging franchise, not the other way around). Part of this year’s apparent obsession with the Earth being laid to waste (a la Oblivion, reviewed here! and the forthcoming Elysium, reviewed here!), After Earth is a science fiction film with a decent concept that has a mixed, but not terrible, execution.

Opening with a crash and flashbacks to the environmental destruction of Earth, After Earth finds most humans living on Nova Prime where humans are hunted by the alien Ursas. Saved by the Rangers, humanity is in danger of being killed off. Kitai Raige is the son of the great Ranger Cypher and when he is not advanced from Cadet to Ranger, he feels shame. Cypher, who wants to be able to retire and spend time with his wife on Nova Prime, reluctantly takes his son with him on what is supposed to be his last mission. When the ship carrying them encounters an asteroid storm and is severely damaged, they are forced to crash land on Earth. Cypher is hurt in the crash and Kitai finds himself the only unharmed survivor of the crash.

Finding their distress beacon damaged and the spare in the ship’s missing tail section, Cypher tasks Kitai with making the 100 kilometer trek to the tail section to recover the other beacon. After an encounter with native primates and a parasite that poisons him, Kitai fully understands just how perilous his current predicament is. When his supplies appear insufficient to reach the tail section of the spacecraft and his communication’s link to his father is destroyed, all hope seems lost. But Kitai perseveres against wild animals and the hostile environment of the ruins of Earth to struggle toward his goal.

Well, if the very worst that can be said about After Earth is that it is better than John Carter (reviewed here!), I’d call that an accomplishment. While it is superior to that floppy, pulpy science fiction mess, After Earth has some serious problems, though most of them are not conceptual. The concept of After Earth is pretty solid. Earth is an overgrown nightmare in After Earth and having an estranged father and son as the two main characters in the movie is a reasonable and generally interesting conceit.

The problems with After Earth come with the execution of some of the ideas and the way parts of the movie are written. More than being at all bad, After Earth is erratic. For example, it is not made entirely clear – other than for the obvious thematic and character development – why the ship Kitai and Cypher are on is carrying one of the alien Ursas. Thematically, After Earth is about survival and a young man learning to overcome his fear. The Ursa, while physically blind, can track humans by the pheromones they secrete when afraid. Cypher learned how to not be afraid and become invisible to the enemy, which has given him a reputation and an uncommon number of military victories against the alien aggressors. So, as part of Kitai surviving on his own and learning to overcome fear, the obvious plot construct is to have an Ursa who will menace him and in his attempt to thwart the creature, he will manage his fear as a milestone of his personal development. It is not only obvious, it is entirely canned. There is so much on Earth that is scary and dangerous in After Earth, that the only reason to include an Ursa is that it is the cheapest, most obvious way to illustrate a Kitai having overcome his fear (as opposed to, for example, sufficient acting of fearlessness, which would do the same thing). So, in-universe, the Ursa’s presence is ridiculous, but from a storytelling perspective, it makes sense.

Similarly odd are other details that are not clearly presented. Kitai is told to head for the waterfall at one point and it is only when he is right on top of it that he acknowledges that he can hear it. How he knew where he was going until that point is unclear (and, given how Nova Prime is shown to be a rocky arid planet, how he would even know what a waterfall is is also unclear).

The truly inconsistent element is the acting. Will Smith is surprisingly melodramatic and stiff as Cypher and when he delivers orders to Kitai (Jaden Smith), he comes across as inhuman as opposed to militaristic and efficient. Smith pulls off the early action scenes that make the viewer believe he could be an exceptional warrior, but he fails to convince viewers that he has the charisma for his character to remain married or even be charming enough to bed a woman twice (Cypher and his wife had a daughter whose death Kitai feels responsible for). Unfortunately, while the ultimate resolution to After Earth could be seen as character growth, Smith’s monotonous performance through the movie makes it seem more like a cheap cop-out to make the film family-friendly.

As for Jaden Smith, he is good. He emotes well for the most part and he makes the viewer care about Kitai and whether or not he and his father will survive. Jaden Smith plays perfectly off all of the virtual creatures and makes the viewer believe that he is truly on an abandoned and savage Earth. While Jaden breaks when having his lips pecked at by a little bird, he seems very invested in the setting and animals he encounters. In fact, the only moment Jaden fails to land is a clunky moment when he and his father confront one another over their communicators about the past. There comes a point between Jaden’s Kitai standing up and forthrightly confronting his father about the past and his role in his sister’s death and shouting somewhat ridiculous pop psychology melodramatic aphorisms that the actor loses the audience. I actively recall being in the moment and consciously wondering if it was terrible acting or horrendous writing with the lines being delivered as best they could be, but the moment is a troublingly bad one for the film and the performer.

The special effects are good in After Earth and there is an obvious Honest Trailer joke about how the film features the eagles from The Lord Of The Rings. (If you have not yet found Screen Junkies’ Honest Trailers on YouTube, check them out! They are hilarious and sometimes clever! While the eagles joke is an obvious one, it will be great to see – should they get around to an Honest Trailer of After Earth if they include Mount Doom in their mock cast list as the mountain upon which Kitai confronts the Ursa in After Earth bears a shocking resemblance to Mount Doom, though it might just be the angles director M. Night Shyamalan chose for them.).

Ultimately, After Earth might bomb in its first weekend at the box office, but there is remarkable potential for a franchise here (television or cinematic). Will Smith set his son up with a good concept and the property, if developed further, could be a reasonable vehicle for the young actor. And if Jaden Smith can succeed in progressing the franchise that After Earth might spawn, perhaps Will Smith could return to summer blockbusters that make better use of his talents.

For other works with David Denman, please check out my reviews of:
Smart People
Big Fish
Angel

6/10

Check out how this movie stacks up against others I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where the film reviews are organized from best work to worst!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Signs Pointing Away From Another Viewing!

The Good: Moments of acting
The Bad: Poor direction, Ridiculous characters, Disappointing plot, Utter lack of mood
The Basics: A disappointing science fiction piece that wants to be a drama and suspense, Signs instead results in being silly and boring.


Saturday night, I was given the choice of which DVD my friends and I were going to watch and I opted against The Emperor's New Clothes and Bloodwork and instead chose Signs. Upon sitting through Signs, I feel I should have chosen Ian Holm's The Emperor's New Clothes.

In this disappointing film, former priest Graham Hess, a family man who is harassed by a local yahoo, finds a strange phenomenon in his corn field. Several stalks of corn are bent in an intriguing manner that - from above - is clearly a sign meant to be seen from above. As Hess works on holding his family together, the world is plagued by hundreds of similar crop phenomenon which is soon followed by alien ships which soon come to tear humanity apart.

Some want to praise M. Night Shyamalan for creating a film that asks ethical questions while making the viewer wonder what is truly going on. In actuality, those people are overstating this film; it is essentially the same science fiction standard that has existed since the 1950s when we had War Of The Worlds and other similar films. The problem here is that there is no similar element of fear or uniqueness.

Instead, the only element that is different is that Graham Hess is a former priest and he has had a six month ethical dilemma since his wife died somewhat violently. Only viewers who want to suspend their disbelief completely will find this compelling. Hess, as written and portrayed, is one of the least accurate or compelling religious figures ever brought to the screen. Allow me to explain.

Hess has fallen out of the Church since his wife died. It sounds like a good idea, save that modern priests are compelled, as part of the education of a priest, to do a tour in a medical facility. Thus, ALL priests encounter death as a matter of professional training. So, his wife dying, even with the seemingly random way it occurs, should not be enough to shake this man's faith so fundamentally.

Add to that, this man is supposed to be a priest. Why then does he willingly and willfully chop off the fingers of one of the aliens? It's not in self-defense, as there is a solid door between the two at the time. Add to that, given the opportunity to attempt to deal with the extraterrestrial invaders peacefully, he orders his brother to bash the creature's head in.

These problems are indicative of the lack of sense that happens as a matter of course in Signs. And we're not talking minor problems. In a key flashback scene where Hess is told he has a few minutes left with his wife before she certainly dies, he WALKS over to her, as opposed to RUNNING like any normal, loving, compassionate husband.

Similar lacks of simple obvious intelligence happens at the very end. When someone discovers what will turn the alien invaders, the radio does not say what it was. Considering how important a detail it is, it's unrealistic that it would be omitted. Moreover, the rather unoriginal nemesis of the aliens (see Alien Nation, for example) makes their choice of attacking Earth flat out idiotic. Basically, the alien invasion in Signs is about as sensible as us launching an attack on Jupiter.

Beyond the utter impractical nature of the film, the characters are entirely unrealistic and unlikable. Outside the police officer, Paski, none actually captivate us and make us believe they are real. Take Graham Hess's brother, Merrill. While on the surface it seems nice that he would come to live with his brother following his sister-in-law's death, it makes little sense because it does not seem apparent that he DOES anything there, nor that he left anything behind. So, it feels too convenient that he is there and it feels inorganic.

Graham Hess's children, Morgan and Bo, are similarly uninspired. All aspects of their character, like Morgan's asthma and Bo's drinking of water, serve only to be a part of the plot and do not seem to have any identity outside furthering the plot.

On the acting front, no one shines here. Mel Gibson seems unimpressive as Graham, adding nothing to the role and not making him have any presence. Similarly, Joaquin Phoenix could have been replaced by any muscular man in a tight t-shirt. The best acting here comes from Cherry Jones as Officer Paski, though, to be fair, Rory Caulkin holds his own as Morgan. The problem is, Morgan is used almost entirely to present exposition for forwarding the plot.

Finally, Signs fails because is fails to capture a suspenseful mood and it is desperately trying. M. Night Shyamalan milks scenes far beyond when they are interesting in an attempt to create suspense, by holding shots too long, keeping the aliens quick and blurry and similar cheap techniques.

This is essentially a bad 1950s style alien invasion story that fails to be interesting or suspenseful because it is too glaringly obviously trying to be something more than it is. Ideal for a night when you're with your friends and you want to sit around tearing a film to pieces for its inane content. If they do a Mystery Science Theater 3000 of this flick, I might go see it. Otherwise, I'll just do my own if I am ever subjected to this again.

For other alien invasion works, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Battle Los Angeles
Invasion
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon

2/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2003 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Thank You, Mr. Willis, May I Have Another Anti-Hero? Unbreakable Is Engaging!

The Good: Good acting, Good character development, Interesting story, Courage
The Bad: Written as to be surprising, but it's not.
The Basics: A surprisingly good realist film that works when it stays true to itself, Unbreakable requires adult judgment to be thoroughly enjoyed.

Bruce Willis was in a sort of a rut as an actor. For a while, he seemed to land roles as somewhat slow, disoriented anti-heroes. An anti-hero is a protagonist who is heroic without possessing the qualities of a noble hero. It's a Modernist thing. To cite my example with Bruce Willis, see him in Twelve Monkeys, The Fifth Element, and . . . Unbreakable. That makes his acting here somewhat more difficult to judge because I'm not sure if he's cast as an anti-hero because he's been so good an actor (Twelve Monkeys) or if he is an anti-hero in real life.

Unbreakable follows David Dunn, the sole survivor of a train wreck outside Philadelphia. Shortly after his miraculous survival, he's contacted by Elijah Price a man with a severe bone disorder that causes his bones to be super brittle. Elijah asks David to consider a simple question, "How often have you been sick or injured in your life?" Well, David realizes after searching himself, his somewhat estranged wife and his employer, that he has never been ill or injured. So, the comic book loving Elijah proposes the obvious: "You, David Dunn, are a super hero."

The wonderful thing about this film is it's not a superhero film. It's a man in the process of becoming film and it works wonderfully as such. It's something new and different because it treats the fantastic (man to hero) in a realist vein. David Dunn isn't suddenly quick-witted or believing in his abilities. And yet, his quiet disposition and the lack of physical contact before all of this comes out play into the idea that the flashes of ability he begins to develop have occurred before. After all, if you were walking down the street, bumped into someone and saw a flash of what they were thinking, wouldn't you be less likely to touch people?

David Dunn is a believable character and his story is well told; think Batman starting at the very beginning, with the death of Bruce Wayne's parents, instead of where it begins with Batman. It's reassuring to see. And Elijah Price. Well, he makes sense. The serious fault in the film is in how it tries to deceive itself at the end. Right before the last scene, a fact about comic book heroes is revealed which is supposed to make us shocked at Elijah's character arc. It's attempting to take a realist film and make it more thriller. It doesn't work. If you don't guess Elijah's arc, you're not awake. That M. Night Shyamalan even makes the attempt to try to be clever as opposed to just having it develop without Elijah's mother's line (you'll know it when you hear it) is somewhat insulting for those of us who are, well, awake.

That's the only real fault of the film, though. Otherwise, it's appropriately paced, mixing together David Dunn's family life and his sense of what's happening with himself. Or rather what's always been there. It's a refreshing change from the . . . extraordinary.

I'd like to close with a thought I don't usually digress onto and that is appropriateness for children. Read my reviews and you might - easily - get the impression that I don't truly give a care in the world for matters concerning children. I'm an adult, I'm watching these things, I'm writing reviews from an adult perspective. Some of you, by this point, may even have picked up the idea that I don't much like children, as a general rule (Nicholas Cage in The Family Man's line, "I take them [children] on a case by case basis" fits me. Otherwise, I'm ambivalent to them.). That said, Unbreakable is not for children and I say this for an important reason. It's an adult film requiring adult sensibilities. If I were a parent and I watched this film, there's no way I'd let my child watch it. Why? At one point, David's son, Joseph, who believes as Elijah does, that David possesses extraordinary strength and ability, pulls a gun on David. It's a wonderful scene. I mean it. I applaud M. Night Shyamalan's courage in writing and directing the scene and the studio for keeping it in the film. It was a HUGE decision in this day in age where there is violence in schools and such. It took courage and the scene is magnificent. But odds are, some impressionable kid could do something truly idiotic based on it. It's an adult scene in an adult movie and it works like that.

Unbreakable might not be a perfect film, but it's good, adult entertainment that tells a real, human story. After all the garbage I've watched lately that's so juvenile, let me just say: Finally. :)

For other films with unlikely heroes, please check out:
Super 8
Watchmen
Alice In Wonderland

7.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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M. Night Shyamalan Creates A Film That Doesn't Hinge On A Twist! The Last Airbender Still Whimpers.

The Good: Excellent effects, Decent hero story
The Bad: Very obvious set-up/story arcs, Young acting is frequently melodramatic.
The Basics: A surprisingly engaging fantasy film geared for youngsters, The Last Airbender is almost tight enough to entertain adults, save the acting and anime delivery conceits.


It has been a long time since I saw a good fantasy hero story that I actually enjoyed enough to enthusiastically recommend. Appropriately enough, the same may be said for movies by writer and director M. Night Shyamalan. Both streaks have ended, though with the emergence of The Last Airbender and Shyamalan finally has the franchise he always wanted (Unbreakable was supposed to be the first in a film series, but its commercial failure prevented the director from continuing with that). In many ways, The Last Airbender, which is Shyamalan’s 2010 entry into Summer Blockbuster Season is a very typical hero story, but the density of its opening instantly clues the viewer into the beginning of a franchise, whether or not Shyamalan wanted that feel to it. In other words, even from the beginning, there is an appropriately epic quality to the film.

It ought to be noted right up front that: 1. The Last Airbender is a remake or reimagining of the anime work Avatar: The Last Airbender, and 2. I have never seen an episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, read any of the manga nor even seen any of the new action figures that accompany this film. I went into the screening of it a complete blank slate. That said, The Last Airbender is an ambitious start to the franchise, even if it seems like Shyamalan and his production crew had to pull punches at certain moments.

There are four known elements in the world: Fire, Air, Earth and Water. The world has been devastated by a long war waged by the Fire Nation upon the Earth and Water Nations (Air has pretty much already fallen to the Fire Nation and those who identify with Air are now nomadic and spread thin). Hope, however, comes in the form of Aang. Aang appears to be only twelve years old, but he is actually far older as he was frozen and is reanimated through Katara and Sokka.  Aang is the last of the protectors and manipulators of Air, an Avatar known as an Airbender. Aang finds himself in the company of the Water Tribe and Sokka and his younger sister, Katara. Aang has the ability to airbend, manipulate air to do its bidding, but he soon learns that the other elements may be within his grasp with the right training.

As a result, Aang, Sokka and Katara set off for the north pole where they hope to find a master of waterbending who might be able to teach Aang how to waterbend and help them to repel the Fire Nation. Unfortunately for the heroes, they are hunted by the disgraced Prince Zuko, who hopes to regain the natural line to the throne by capturing Aang and prove himself to Lord Ozai. But just as Zuko is hunting the young Airbender and his friends, so too are other Fire Nation leaders and all signs point that if Aang falls, the world will fall to Fire!

The Last Airbender is an ambitious start to a fantasy series that feels incredibly familiar in some ways. M. Night Shyamalan, who wrote the movie, is clearly not attempting to reinvent the wheel with the hero narrative and the plot for The Last Airbender is simple and direct in a way that will not surprise most moviegoers. Given that this film was co-created by Nickelodeon Movies, it is no surprise that the plot is kept somewhat simple with reversals that one suspects even young people will see coming. Even so, it is not unenjoyable and there are moments that certainly seek to push the envelope of a fantasy film geared toward youngsters.

Even so, there is very little that is truly bothersome for parents in The Last Airbender. Despite having pretty incredible special effects at moments, the relationships are kept very much platonic. Aang appears to be 12 and his friends are only a few years older than him. The movie plays much more like a buddy film than a movie that is building romantic interests between the protagonists (much like the early Harry Potter films). And like many movies with a hero in the process of becoming, Aang goes through a lot of training and dispenses and receives a great deal of expository dialogue, in this case frequently delivered with inappropriately heightened senses of emotion. The movie is packed with enough information to make the universe it is set in seem plausible without it ever slowing the pace down or feeling the like the viewer is being unnecessarily lectured.

Aang is a likable protagonist as well. He has all the characteristics of the archetypal hero, including the desire to do good and to help those around him. What Shyamalan manages to do well with Aang is present the idea of responsibility and the way it clashes with Aang’s inherent desires to have fun and do his own thing make him a much more compelling and realistic protagonist. Similarly, Prince Zuko is appropriately fleshed out for a villain who might otherwise appear monolithic. Zuko is the disgraced leader and while there are moments he seems like he might simply be acting out of a sense of entitlement, his desire to regain his position as legitimate heir to the throne seems to truly come from his desire to see his people excel.

Zuko is played by Dev Patel, who might still best be known for Slumdog Millionaire (reviewed here!). In The Last Airbender, he sublimates his good guy nature and presents a character who is hurt, angry and works masterfully as a villain. In fact, the only real difficulty with Patel’s performance is believing his character is so young. Similarly, Jackson Rathbone (Sokka) and Nicola Peltz (Katara) give decent supporting performances that make one want to see where they might go in the future.

But much of the film hinges on the performance of Noah Ringer, who plays Aang. Ringer is actually a tween and he is charged with portraying a character who only appears to be so young. Ringer has moments when he stares, when he sets his jaw and when he speaks where he effectively connotes his character’s true age and that type acting ability is certainly uncommon. Ringer succeeds with what he has to and he holds his own as well in the physical scenes. But more often than that, Ringer and Peltz are compelled to give deliveries with the start and stop of melodrama that is common to anime works and this acts as a severe drag on the film, especially in the middle of the movie.

As far as the special effects go, they work in The Last Airbender, but are nothing groundbreaking. Fans of big special effects films will be pleased, just as fans of drama will be happy that Shyamalan does not go over-the-top with them.

Ultimately, The Last Airbender does just what one hopes a summer popcorn movie will do: it entertains and makes one care about the characters. Who could ask for more?

For other fantasy films, please check out my reviews of:
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl

5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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