After Earth - 1 frown

“After Earth,” directed by M, Night Shyamalan, isn’t awful, awful, awful. It’s just awful.  It’s hard to find things it does well and at 100 minutes, it moves slowly and takes itself way too seriously as it sends a boy out into the wilderness on his own in a hostile environment prowled by bad CGI animals and stupid plot contrivances. And, interesting enough, Shyamalan’s name appears nowhere in the trailers. The script, co-written by Shyamalan and Gary Whitta, provides characters without personality and a journey to the obvious. There’s never a sense that Kitai (Jaden Smith) is in any real danger. When he’s chased by a large number of baboons, we know he’s going to get away. When a parasite poisons his blood, we know he’s going to inject the antidote. The problem isn’t that Kitai survives the ordeal but that his survival is never in doubt. And it’s hard to determine how much of Jaden’s clumsy performance is a result of limited ability and how much in the result of a bad screenplay and poor directing. (Contrast his performance in The Karate Kid.) As Kitai’s father, Will Smith isn’t required to do more than spend 75% of the film trapped with two broken legs and alone in a wrecked spaceship. His usual Will Smith charisma is AWOL. You can’t blame a father for wanting to help his son in the business. Perhaps one day Jaden will have the ability to carry a movie. But given all of the problems with “After Earth,” it’s a little premature to expect him to shine. 6/2/13