After starring in the sci-fi flick “After Earth,” Jaden Smith may want to rethink his future as an actor. (AP)
Jaden, left, and Will Smith are left gasping for air in the shallow ‘After Earth.’ (
)
‘May cause extreme drowsiness’’ reads the flashing warning on a pain killer that Will Smith takes after breaking both legs in his new movie — a caution that applies equally to “After Earth.’’
Basically, this is Smith and his real-life son, Jaden (both affecting ridiculous mid-Atlantic accents) talking the audience to death for something like 90 minutes before the closing credits.
I’m giving it one star because Smith’s longtime enablers at Sony apparently encouraged him to whittle this humorless sci-fi epic down from a much longer movie.
The back story in the opening narration — Earth’s evacuation following a vague environmental catastrophe — is boiled down to a couple of sentences.
A thousand years later, Smith is the aptly named Cypher, a general in the United Ranger Corps, the military arm of the former Earthlings who have settled on a distant planet and produced exceedingly dull descendants.
On the verge of retirement, Cypher decides to take his 14-year-old son, Kitai, along on his last mission.
The two have a frosty relationship because, we’re told, Kitai blames his frequently absent dad for his sister’s death. I have a sneaking suspicion that the fact Cypher wears a perpetual scowl probably doesn’t help things.
A meteor shower forces their spacecraft to crash land on Earth, where Cypher and son are the only survivors in a hostile environment.
“Do exactly as I tell you, and we will survive!’’ the disabled Cypher barks at Kitai in an order that would probably sound better if papa Smith had delivered it as a rap lyric.
Most of the film consists of Kitai traveling miles on foot to recover a rescue beacon, and then, even less interestingly, trying to find the intergalactic equivalent of a cellphone signal.
There are exactly two action sequences — brief pursuit by what look like deranged orangutans, and a climactic battle with a badly executed special effect that’s supposed to represent a deadly extraterrestrial.
Eleven years and several progressively more dreadful movies after “Signs,’’ director M. Night Shyamalan would be lucky to get a gig directing traffic.
His work on this reported $150 million vanity project manages to generate no suspense or excitement. Only yawns.
Will Smith, who co-produced with assorted family members, also contributed the vaguely
L. Ron Hubbard-ish story, for what is laughably described in the press notes as a “franchise.’’
The erstwhile box-office king, who appears to be suffering from delusions of grandeur in recent years, really should stick to his day job.
Separating father and son for most of the film certainly limits the dramatic possibilities. What’s more, while Jaden Smith pulled off the remake of “The Karate Kid,’’ he’s not quite a good enough actor (or sufficiently charismatic) to hold the screen by himself in scene after scene.
We’re left to ponder how Earth remains so green and leafy when the temperatures drop below freezing every night, or why all that plant life can’t supply sufficient oxygen so that Kitai doesn’t have to rely on an imperiled supply of inhalers.
He is able to receive Dad’s overbearing self-help lectures via a communication device — which, like all the 31st-century technology on view, is surprisingly more fragile than anything you could buy at the Apple store these days.
“Fear is not real, it is a production of your imagination!’’ Cypher exhorts Kitai. “Danger is very real but fear is a choice!’’
And so is avoiding the crashing bore that is “After Earth.’’
Follow @LouLumenick on Twitter for the latest movie news and reviews.