The grass is thick & green, the plants & trees are lush and the sky is blue…what’s to be scared of? Well there’s a horde of angry baboons looking to start some trouble and a giant eagle that’s looking around for some grub for it’s babies that causes a bit of trouble for Kitai (Although it turns out to be the hero of the film in the end) but that’s about it (Besides that annoying Ursa that’s shambling about). And since Cypher can’t help his son it’s safe to say that young Kitai has his work cut out for him.įrom this point on “AFTER EARTH” becomes more of a travelogue than anything else as earth doesn’t really look all too shabby 1000 years after we left. Oh…there just happened to be an Ursa on board the ship that was being brought along for training and it was released in the crash so it’s lurking about, sniffing for some scaredy cat human to munch down on as well. Once it’s established that everyone on board is dead except for Cypher & Kitai the film turns into a quest for a homing beacon that just happens to be located on the other half of the ship and both of Cypher’s legs are broken so it’s up to Kitai to traverse the mean terrain of the earth on his own and retrieve/activate that beacon to signal for help or the both of them are gonna die. Both halves land on the nearest planet which just happens to be….Earth. But midway through the trip their starship gets caught in a meteor storm that ends up splitting the ship in two halves. But he does and Cypher decides (With some prodding from Faia) to take his son with him on what will be his last mission as a ranger in order to bond with his son.
The technique is called “Ghosting” and he uses it to pretty much single handedly take care of the Ursa although the war continues on.Įarly on in the film we learn that Cypher is going one last training mission before retiring to spend time with his wife Faia (Sophie Okenedo) and his son Kitai (Jaden Smith) who’s just failed his exam to become a ranger (Rangers are what qualify for soldiers in the future) and is really worried about how to break the news to his taciturn father. But there came a savior! And his name was Cypher Raige (Will Smith), who has the power to essentially “turn off” his fear at will and if the Ursa can’t smell you then they can’t kill you so Cypher is essentially invisible to the marauding creatures. The aliens had a trump card in the form of creatures known as the Ursa and although the Ursa’s are essentially blind they have the power to sense/smell fear and since they’re pretty big and ugly they just ran around smelling everybody and lancing them with their pincers with reckless abandon. The place where they ended up is a planet called Nova Prime and was good there for awhile, but then the aliens came and a war was begun. In this story, humanity has decimated the earth and was forced to leave 1000 years earlier. And much like Tom’s slow as molasses misfire, “AFTER EARTH” also fails to hit it’s intended target but it isn’t quite as bad as you’ve been led to believe. What would a summer blockbuster film season be without at least one film that tells the story of humanity leaving Earth due to some calamity that ruins the planet? Those of you who like this hackneyed plot line got lucky this year since “ AFTER EARTH” is the second one to grace screens across the country in the past 6 weeks (Tom Cruise’ “OBLIVION” was the first). With his father injured, the boy must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help.
A crash landing leaves a father & son stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after events forced humanity’s escape.