3) After Earth
Central Cast: Will Smith, Jayden Smith, Isabelle Fuhrman
Budget: $130 Million
Release Date: June 7th
Directed By: M. Night Shyamalan
The Pitch: After crash landing their spacecraft, Kitai Ranger and his esteemed father Cypher are marooned on a planet Earth set 1,000 years in the future. Kitai must journey across the alien planet to signal for help for his injured father and, in doing so; withstand a harsh, unforgiving environment that has evolved beyond recognition. His quest is to find the ship’s rescue beacon to contact Nova Prime – humanity’s new home – and get off the forsaken planet before his father slips away.
The Verdict: After Earth – a.k.a. 1000A.E. – is M. Night Shyamalan’s seventh feature film and his first return to the realm of science fiction since Signs more than a decade ago. With Jayden Smith and Will Smith playing the on screen father and son, respectively, this is a movie that isn’t short on Hollywood star power. In saying that, much of After Earth’s story will be centred on Kitai and will present an interesting familial dynamic at the heart of this futuristic tale.
This is the Smiths’ second on screen partnership following The Pursuit of Happyness in 2006, although Shyamalan’s film is a million nautical miles away from an against-the-odds story set in New York. For After Earth, our humble space rock has been quarantined and, to quote the advertisements, we have ditched it for a reason, thereby hinting at a deep mythology bubbling away underneath the glitzy effects-laden surface. The story will traverse between the year 1908 and 2160, so the much maligned director can’t exactly use a shortage of resources as a valid excuse should the film fail to live up to expectations. Now, that may sound pessimistic but, let’s face it, After Earth could go one of two ways.
Firstly, this film is directed by M. Night Shyamalan who has mired his once promising reputation in mediocrity with movies such as The Happening and The Last Airbender, so I couldn’t blame you if you foresee After Earth being dead on arrival. But let’s step back for a second. This is the first time that the director has used somebody else’s screenplay in over twenty years; what’s more, it was Will Smith himself who hired Shyamalan to direct the film – that’s right, Smith now possesses that kind of clout – so surely After Earth deserves our curiosity if not, even just maybe, our attention.
Hype-O-meter: 6/10
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