After Earth
Astonishing. “After Earth” is, front to back, a tremendous surprise the first co-production between producer costar Will Smith and director M. Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense,” “Unbreakable”) is a moral tale disguised as a sci-fi blockbuster; it’s not a classic but it’s very special: spectacular and wise.
Smith plays Cypher Raige, a veteran space soldier with an obviously overripe name. Cypher’s son Kitai (Jaden Smith) is an aspiring warrior who has just failed his cadet promotion test for the second time. Co-written by Shyamalan and Gary Whitta (who wrote “The Book of Eli”), the script sketches out this future world in quick brushstrokes: Humans have fled a polluted Earth and built cities on Nova Prime; unfortunately, the planet was already claimed by another species that didn’t take kindly to the colonists and created predators to kill them.
The predators are ursas huge creatures that look like some designer’s cross between Mike from “Monsters, Inc.” dipped in acid and slime, with razor fangs and pincers. They hunt by smelling fear. The humans of Nova Prime fought them to a draw but one killed Kitai’s sister during a home invasion when he was younger; the kid has survivor’s guilt, and dad feels terrible about being on assignment when the nightmare happened.
So far so good: There are feelings at stake here! And there are things at stake here! This is going to be fun!
I’m making light of all this because I know how ridiculous it sounds on paper or on pixels. But let me tell you something: On screen? It works.
This isn’t dialogue-heavy material; most conversations revolve around Kitai telling Cypher where he is or where he’s going (“I’ve found water,” “I’m going up this hill”) or what he’s doing (“I’m going to change the battery,” “I’ve got to get up this hill”). These exchanges are relayed via a video and audio link that allows Cypher to monitor Kitai’s progress from afar.
The performances are appropriately, uh, limited: Smith fills is all untested resolve and moist eyes; Smith Père is stolidity personified, as usual. (Cypher’s ability to “ghost” fight without fear or anger is mentioned often but not really put into play.) And the film moves steadily forward on a foundation of coincidence and contrivance although none of it feels like mere narrative convenience.
The camera moves with purpose, always; its motives are clear and clean: to follow action, frame action, explain action; sometimes just to get out of the way. Everything in the film deepens the relationship between its characters and their world; everything conceals or reveals surprises.
The movie tells its story as Cypher or Kitai might; every scene lasts exactly as long as it should.
For Shyamalan, this is the perfect movie at the right time. The features are usually written, directed and starred in by himself. His control-freak tendencies amplify his strengths (creepy atmosphere, cleverly set-up scares, flashy camera work) as well as his weaknesses (contrived “twist” endings, sub-Spielbergian sentimentality, dorky pseudo-profundity).
After “The Village,” “Lady in the Water,” “The Happening” and “The Last Airbender” all flopped with critics and/or audiences with some wondering if he’d ever make another A-list movie again it seemed like his talent was still there but you couldn’t see it behind all that ego; his pop mojo was as wrecked as Cypher’s starship.
This wasn’t a Shyamalan project from scratch. He rewrote a script based on a story by Will Smith, who had read a magazine article about a father and son surviving after a plane crash, reimagined it as a space adventure and hired Shyamalan to direct. So he’s basically just working for hire here but not disinterestedly so.
The M. Night vibe is low-key throughout “After Earth,” but you can still feel it; particularly in those wide shots of Kitai scrambling along forest floors and up mountain peaks, or during scenes of Cypher talking his son across treacherous land formations while their tightly framed faces respond to each other through editing sometimes seeming to meld into one organism with shared consciousness. By the time we get to the film’s lyrical final act, they’re practically spiritually attuned like E.T. and Elliott.
The movie’s world is nearly as CGI-enhanced as the title planet of “Avatar” only it feels realer than that. It isn’t an effects theme park with another slobbering space beast behind every tree trunk, but a fully imagined ecosystem; a tapestry of flora and fauna. Fern fronds curl in the icy night air. Flocks of birds form patterns in the sky. Carnivorous baboons, great cats, wild pigs, snakes and condors move like real animals move, and react to threats with intelligence as well as force. Some of Shyamalan’s images gesture back to classic movie tales of survival and madness in nature: “Aguirre: The Wrath of God,” “Jeremiah Johnson,” “The Searchers,” “The Naked Prey,” “The Edge.”
“After Earth” is ultimately too thin of a story for all its operatic trimmings to hang on so what? Better to try and pack every moment with beauty and feeling than just shrug and smirk. The film takes its characters and their emotions seriously, and lets its actors give strong, simple performances. The younger Smith is great here as a male ingenue character unpretentious, kind-hearted, ego-less.
The elder Smith puts away the Bel Air badass shtick that makes many of his star turns annoyingly monotonous (especially in science fiction movies) and gives a restrained, very physical performance here; he lets subtle vocal tremors or shifts in body language hint at worries that the father hides from his son. In scenes where Will Smith’s watery eyes are framed against his battered crewcut head in extreme close-up, he evokes the middle-aged Burt Lancaster: a monument to machismo worn down by pain and time.
The father educates the son, and the son teaches the father. As is stated on the poster in the movie theater, danger is definitely real but fear can be optional. You can become a master of an event, creator of a moment even if it seems to be too much if you have taken into yourself what people who have faced similar trials knew and told you about their own survival; yet no lessons apply everywhere, no rules are absolute. Sometimes you’ve got to disobey orders from a commanding officer who gave you half your DNA. Parent and child must eventually part because they need to remake themselves as peers; both characters know this at some level even though it makes them sad.
All this sounds pretty cheesy by today’s standards. But Aesop’s fables are cheesy by today’s standards too, along with Bible stories. “After Earth” holds its head high because it knows what it wants to say and how to say it. The asteroid storm comes out of nowhere as if summoned by Poseidon stirring a pot with his trident.
The spaceship looks like something Odysseus might feel comfortable in: the ribs of its hull appear organic, like wood or bone. The skyscrapers on Nova Prime consist of triangular wedges that look like sails on a schooner. The warriors fight with blades. Ursa is Latin for bear Kitai’s leap from a high cliff is a leap of faith; his name is Japanese for “hope.” This movie is a fable Fables teach things.
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