The Earth has been destroyed by a catastrophe that forced the surviving humans to move to the planet Nova Prime, where they are forced to coexist with the alien Skrel, who consider the planet their territory. To protect humans from the Skrel and their organic weapons, the terrifying Ursa, humans have created the United Ranger Corps, a first-response, prevention, and defense team tasked with ensuring the continuation of the human species. Among the Rangers is Cypher Rage, the decorated general who has the ability of spectrality, meaning he can easily fight the Ursa as he can become invisible to them. His son Kitai is attending a school that could get him into the Rangers but fails the final exam, so his father decides to take him on a training exercise that, as usual, will take place on another planet. During the journey, the spaceship carrying Cypher, Kitai, and other Rangers finds itself in the middle of a meteor storm, is severely damaged, and is forced to make an emergency landing on a planet no one would want to set foot on: Earth! Cypher and Kitai are the only survivors, but Cypher is injured and cannot move, so the boy must cross the forested area separating him from the tail of the spaceship to retrieve a beacon capable of calling for help. Kitai will have to survive in an now inhospitable environment where Nature has taken over, and as if that were not enough, an Ursa that was traveling with them as a target for training is now free and hungry.
Do you remember M. Night Shyamalan of the heart-wrenching "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable"? Do you remember the shocking final twists of these films and "The Village," the slow pacing, the constant tension, the inevitability of destiny as told in "Signs," or the unsettling atmosphere of "The Happening" and the fairy-tale sense of wonder of "Lady in the Water"? Do you remember the very personal style of this talented Indian director successfully transplanted to Hollywood? Well, you can forget it all because for some years now Shyamalan has lost his touch, his films have started to flop at the box office, and with "The Last Airbender" he directed a deeply ugly, completely impersonal film, to say the least.
"After Earth" was supposed to be the redemption film, the one that would make up for the misstep of "The Last Airbender," and instead it did nothing but confirm Shyamalan's authorial bewilderment. However, unlike the previous film, "After Earth" is ultimately a good product, a science fiction adventure film that pays the price of being clearly a promotional tool, despite the director co-writing the screenplay, strongly wanted by actor Will Smith, who is the creator of the subject, producer, and co-star alongside his son Jaden. "After Earth" is therefore more of a Will Smith film than a Shyamalan film, and this is noticeable given the summer blockbuster feel and genre affiliation.
Through a few pieces of information given at the beginning by the young protagonist's narration, we quickly learn about the approximately 1000 years of history that led to the Earth's uninhabitability and the establishment of a settlement on Nova Prime. From this moment on, the film has a very fast pace that primarily aims to immerse the protagonists in the adventure. An adventure that is indeed engaging, with the many dangers that the inexperienced Kitai must face, manifested in troops of baboons, venomous parasites, fierce prehistoric-like tigers, giant eagles, and of course the Ursa, the infamous alien monster immediately presented as the protagonist's primary nemesis. Kitai has a childhood trauma linked to an Ursa attack that killed his older sister, connected to the rivalry that binds the boy to his father for his absence in the moment of need. Therefore, the adventure Kitai finds himself facing puts him in front of both his Achilles' heels: his father and the Ursa. On one hand, he must prove to himself and his parent that he is a mature and capable person, especially because both of their lives depend only on him; on the other hand, he must face and defeat his greatest fear, that monster that as a child massacred in front of his eyes one of the people he was most attached to. And it is precisely on the concept of fear that the film reflects, revealing in this and especially in the path that follows the protagonist a glimpse of the old Shyamalan. The Ursa are blind and can sense prey only through a pheromone that their victims release when they feel fear, so only by inhibiting the feeling of fear can one defeat an Ursa; and it is precisely with this central reflection on overcoming fear that someone has wondered if "After Earth" was making more than a reference to Scientology, but it is probably just a coincidence.
The film is structured like a video game: we have the hero engaged in completing a series of "levels," in each of which he must acquire different abilities (flight, mimicry, heat seeking, etc.), has a time to complete the mission, a guiding voice (that of Cypher) that intervenes to solve some difficulties, and a final boss to defeat. This structure helps a lot in maintaining a constant and at the same time increasing pace, making the 100 minutes of the film's duration a quick, carefree, and pleasant viewing experience.
Bravo Jaden Smith, who steals the scene from his father practically always, but this is intended by Will Smith himself because it is clear that "After Earth" is the father's attempt to push his son into that Olympus where he arrived with so much hard work.
If someone, therefore, expected with "After Earth" the artistic rebirth of Shyamalan, they should put their soul at ease, it is not like that. However, we are faced with a robust blockbuster that knows how to keep viewers glued to the screen with adventure, action, and space monsters. If one is not too demanding, one can be satisfied.
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