After Earth - C-

Rated PG-13, 100 minutes

Jaden Smith

"After Earth" a serviceable but slow, hokey sci-fi thriller

"After Earth" is an original sci-fi film with an unusual teaming of Will Smith and director M. Night Shyamalan. After some box-office and/or critical busts of late, Shyamalan is a bit of a liability and while "After Earth" is one of his better films of the last 5 years, it's still a conventional, sometimes silly and very talky sci-fi thriller helped by the dynamic Smith duo.  A crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity's escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai embarks on a perilous journey for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. The mildly entertaining but ultimately divisive "After Earth" is peppered with some decent visuals and a few engaging moments, but the banal dialogue, the underlying spiritual themes and the sluggish plotting don't help the film much. Shyamalan, on the rebound after the disaster known as "The Last Airbender," badly needs a big hit, and while "After Earth" may not provide that, it's an improvement over his recent films. The handsomely photographed, slick "After Earth" fails due to its seemingly different visions for the film at work; the vision from the Smith camp has it a ridiculous spiritual exercise heavily influenced by Scientology (if you know anything about that movement it's noticeable); the Shyamalan vision has it has as pure action-adventure fantasy, which taken as that works a little better. It's a mixed blessing, for "After Earth" is occasionally interesting sci-fi (Jaden's changing suit is a nice touch, their baffling dialect, not as much), otherwise it would've ended up a "Battlefield Earth"-esque disaster, which thankfully it isn't. The engaging Smith interplay, particularly from the winning Jaden, who carries the film, keeps it watchable even when little is going on, which is most of the film.  The bland "After Earth" is a modestly intriguing but mostly unmemorable sci-fi thriller that finds director-for-hire Shyamalan improved, even if (or mainly because) he has to promote the Scientology brand.

Wes's Grade: C-