After Earth was a bit disappointing. The family gathered around to watch this but it was only of two people mainly and the story line was a little boring,sorry not for us.

I expected more from this film, it looked great on the trailers but is really disappointing in the end, I wish I hadn't paid so much for it as I felt a bit cheated so much is unexplained and you have to try to guess what is going on, I have seen much better films that didn't have so much on screen hype, it is technically good in places but the plot is a bit thin.

I love Will Smith, but he did a 'take your son to work day' and picked a shockingly bad storyline and even worse CGI, the script was very limited and meant the acting was poor, this could have been as good as I am legend but never got past the leg...

For a �6 dvd I don't feel cheated, but if I'd spend �7 or more I would have been gutted.

Lets hope Jaden improves with age.

Once director M Night Shyamalan was one of the most promising new talents in Holllywood with some calling him the next Steven Spielberg thanks to hits The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Now however his career seems to have gone downhill with one turkey after another. I was hoping that After Earth would be a career revival but sadly it's yet another dud. 1000 years after a major disaster forces the evacuation of Earth, a ship carrying cadet Katei and his father Cyper crashes on the now abandoned planet and they are forced to work together in a harsh environment to survive. Despite decent performances from Will Smith and his son Jaden Smith and impressive effects this is a dull scifi film hammering another nail in the coffin of M Night Shyamalan's career.

Essentially a Will Smith and family film production, there are four of them involved from writing, producing, and of course Father and son(Will and Jaden)playing father and son.

Set 1000 years in the future after some sort of disaster,the story is just awful, contrived to show off 13 year old Jaden as a serious actor in the mould of his father. He is on screen totally alone for much of the films running time trying to act against a variety of off the shelf CGI monsters. The films only chance of success rests squarely on young Jadens performance, because the whole production,except the Music, is a complete mess. The story is truly dreadful (care of Mr Smith snr), production design childish and ripped off from a countless number of sixties productions, costume design is lazy and predictable. Direction is mediocre, with only occasional flourishes that lift it out of the realms of cheap TV. The special effects are adequate but often cartoonish and look like Play Satation or X Box cut scenes.

This situation placed a great deal of expectation on 13 Year old Jaden, who is inexperienced and has a very limited acting range. His diction has been described as "inelegant" and I can understand why. He has a habit of dropping the end of words and seemingly rushing his lines, this of course should have been stamped on by the Director. Perhaps that many Smiths looking on all the time limited his ability to wrestle a better performance from the youngest Smith on set. If Jaden is going to become a serious actor his parents need to let him be guided by others and learn his craft, if he can.

The result is a pretty poor film and most reviewers seem to agree with me. It's a great shame because there is a seed of a great movie in there trying to get made. The Director is talented but I think the force of all those Smiths around got the better of him and they got the film they wanted. The director however got all the blame which is unfair.

Avoid unless you're a HUGE Smith or Science Fiction fan Read more ›

just 1 boy running through a jungle for the length of the film, seems they just didn't have enough ideas to make in more interesting!

General Cypher Raige (Will Smith - I, Robot) is one of the first 'ghosts' - men trained not to fear the abominable beasts that have been bred to detect and hunt human fear. They strike terror into most Rangers [read: Soldiers] and so consequently demolish armies; without ghosts there would be no survival. Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith - The Karate Kid [2010]) is his son, training for the Rangers but not quite at the level where he can control his emotion. In need of some Father & Son bonding, Cypher takes Kitai on a training exercise that goes awry and forces them to crash-land on the original, abandoned & quarantined Earth. With the ship destroyed and Cypher mortally wounded, it is up to Kitai to activate the beacon to get them rescued. Can he control his emotions? Time will tell...

After Earth is a shocking film to include some big names on both the production (M. Night Shyamalan) and the front-of-house (Smith) - the CGI is shoddy at points, the scenery is nonsensical, the geology positively laughable; the whole planet freezes at night, yet despite this point during the day is a lush, steamy tropical jungle. I know what you are thinking; "it's a film, that's the idea" but it's paradoxical in its own canon to the point where you just don't care any more. There are troops of howler monkeys that have exactly the same biology as us (98% dontcha know) yet Kitai has to use some sort of breathing fluid to breathe Earth's air where they are fine - a plot-hinging point. Apparently, everything has evolved to eat & hunt humans yet there have been none left on the planet for some 1,000 years according to the wafer-thin preamble that sets the film up. It just doesn't hang together, I appreciate films introduce fiction as that is often where the story comes from, but this was actively proving itself wrong, and that's OK in some genres but Sci-Fi fanboys like to get all up in a fictional universe and this was just phoned-in.

Jaden Smith is just too young to hold the 1hr40mins bit, his emotional range is laughable as his pubescent voice wavers from a gruff baritone ranger ("Yes Sir!!") to a squealing soprano during his rage-out about halfway in. His voice is evidently breaking, that's fine, we all went through it we won't judge for that but then why is he the lead? Bearing in mind the hugely talented Will sits in a chair and has about six lines, during which his role is to play an emotionless robot. He even grimace hugs his wife and son - it hardly inspires compassion and contains literally zero character development. It's almost as if Will went "Here son, I'll let you take this one" in some sort of familial charity case.

There is a digital copy of the film included with this disc - with Ultraviolet codings (UV is a digital locker for your media, you have to register an account and upload your unique product code, but then you can stream it or download it anywhere on the planet on any medium).

I apologise for whinging at length in far too much detail, but I just wanted to point out that this will be a headache for anyone who actually appreciates Sci-Fi and most definitely not worthy of anyone's money. Extremely disappointing for Will Smith and a non-starter for Jaden. Avoid. Read more ›