Why do people abhor After Earth?

So I just got around to watching this movie today - it is the Will Smith flick originally written by our very own Gary Whitta about a father and son getting stranded on Earth that has undergone quite a few changes over 1000 years. I thought overall the movie was pretty decent for a mindless sci-fi flick. The acting was just average but I really enjoyed all the tech, like the suits changing color, scanning and communication devices or the malleable weapons. Then as always after finishing my viewing I went online to read some trivia and comments. Then I realized wow - people really have a strong disliking for this movie and mercilessly pick it apart as if sci-fi cinema has always been somy holy bastion of reason and logic.

So I'm curious - did you guys really hate it? And if so, why? Personally I thought it was a decent flick with cool special effects - a 7/10

No idea, I thought it was average, an enjoyable enough sci-fi B-Movie. And yes, Shaymalan's directing is cold and the acting is wooden but at least the story is specifically designed to play into those flaws directly, so it's not the worst fit.

Answer: Jaden Smith.

2nd Answer: Because the plot is nonsensical.

3rd answer: Because Will Smith is trying to force his spawn on the general populace.

all good answers. yeaup. pretty bad movie. I'd rather re-watch Prometheus. At least it has Theron in it to go along with the nonsense plot and dialog.

Because anything with Shyalaman on the title must be hated ... I dunno why but thats how it goes :/

See:

Jaden Smith is not a good actor and is only in After Earth because of his dad, and the plotting is incredibly dumb. Shyamalan is a hack when it comes to script writing, but he wasn't the writer of After Earth, so he shouldn't shoulder as much blame as he does for his usual efforts.

It's not that bad.

I don't think it's particularly good, but it's nowhere near as bad as its reviews. I think it's better than Oblivion, Pacific Rim, Wolverine and Fast 6, just to name a few from this year.

I'd say it's definitely better than Oblivion, but I enjoyed Pacific Rim a bit more for the dumbness and cheesiness of it all. For me it's on par with Wolverine or a bit better but that's only because I have a soft spot for weird sci-fi future tech and Wolverine used that boring trope of disabling a characters powers. Fast 6 I actually never finished watching as I got bored by it which is an unprecedented event for me as I always watch every movie to the end simply to know what happens - maybe I was just really sleepy but I honestly didn't care what happened.

Better than Oblivion? You've lost any kind of respectability with that comment. Oblivion wasn't totally my cup of tea and while it wasn't great, it was still reasonably well put together. After Earth had no redeeming features except for a few pretty CGi sequences.

Reasonably put together? The premise is even more ridiculous than After Earth. If you were to pick it apart the plot almost completely collapses in on itself and the ending is simply terrible. After Earth has a lot of plotholes as well but at least the ending isn't ridiculous.

But why would you even want to watch a mindless sci-fi flick in the first place?

@grissefar: Sometimes I want to watch a thought provoking, intricate movie like Inception or Moon - and sometimes it's late, I'm tired and all I want is some neat special effect and a half decent story. You can enjoy shallow movies just as much as complex and engaging ones. That's why Pacific Rim is a fun movie, despite having lackluster acting, horrible dialog and a really shallow plot.

Oh gotta try some good movies then. Sometimes, even if I don't feel like watching a movie and I start watching anyway, Daniel Day-Lewis or Linklater or whoever just sucks me in man and I forget that I was tired. On the contrary, if I start watching Sherlock Holmes or Ironman some shit like that, I can't believe how hard it sucks and all I can think of is that I want to turn it off, which I usually do.

I think when it comes to nonsense, nothing beats Prometheus.

Why wouldn't you?

It wasn't bad. Just incredibly boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring. Also Scientology I guess.

While After Earth had a few moments where you think "well why don't they just wear pheromone odor nullifying suits or something" or "why does he cary a backpack that holds less items than a purse" but it wasn't nearly as bad as watching Promotheus where I'd literally yell at the screen "WHY ARE YOU TAKING OFF YOUR HELMET ?! CAUSE YOU FEEL LIKE IT'S OK???? These are the best scientists this multi billion dollar corporation can afford?!" Ohhh man that whole movie was such nonsense. Oh I just gave myself a c-section and my stomach is held together by some staples, but I'm good to go, oh don't send anyone into that room there's an ALIEN LIFEFORM in there that I pulled out of my womb, no biggie.

I don't abhor it. It's just there. That is almost worse than loathing it because it's too mediocre to talk about.

It really put out that "Hey, you idiots will see anything with Will Smith in it. Here's a half-ass movie with him and his kid. Now give us your money." vibe. I think that turned a lot of people off.

Not to mention the fact that it was super fucking boring. (Stupid Red Box was all out of Star Trek this weekend. Had to watch this instead.)

It is just a bad move, for me it is that simple.

The premise is weak and in turn the story has plot holes you could drive a space shuttle through. The biggest issue: Nova Prime was colonized because a war with aliens, but somewhere between 50 and 70 years later all creatures on Earth "evolved" to kill humans...[cough, cough bullshit]. Plot hole two: This is a society that has very advanced tech but with this advanced technology the one and only weapon shown in the entire movie is a two-bladed retractable knife...Really? Also, the things the humans fight are alien weapons genetically engineered to wipe out human...yet humans are fighting them pretty well. So, the premise here is what: advanced civilization fight wars that amount to a physical slap fight...right. Plot hole prime: The story of this movie is a quest for a beacon to send a distress signal to Nova Prime. I repeat, the son is sent to the damn mountain to send a distress signal. But, the movie itself shows, before the crash, two pilots sending a "Mayday, mayday...". They were 'may-day-ing' to someone with teh expectation of being heard, and since they were is space THAT signal would have had 10,000% better chance to be received...so what are the father and son doing?

Just as an aside, the acting stunk too.

It's not a good movie.

I can handle dumb fun with the best of them but both Smiths' acting was sooo bad I had a hard time getting through it.

@humanity: What's that? Some creepy, dangerous looking alien snake thingy that's hissing and has large teeth? Oh my, it's so cute, let's pet it! I'm the best biologist in the world! Way better than that dead body a few minutes ago!

It's real bad. I liked it, but fully acknowledged that it's terrible. The blind aliens, are they immune to bullets? Why-

...never mind.

I've gotten to the point where nonsense plots in sci-fi movies don't bother me. I go in just hoping for neat visual designs and effects, and if the story is good that's a bonus. I pretty much rely entirely on books for good story-telling these days.

I don't want to watch it. It just looks like the Smith family killing animals in skin tight uniforms.

Don't forget, he likes Scientology too.

@spraynardtatum: I can confirm that the Smith family doesn't kill a single animal in the entire movie.

that's actually really surprising to me. The trailers showed a ton of animals falling off cliffs or getting in spear fights.

@spraynardtatum: yes the trailers really amp up the entire "everything has evolved to kill humans" angle. In reality there's barely a handful of encounters - it's more like a coming of age story about a young man being forced to face the elements. Smiths son is battling the planet, his own insecurities and the need to impress and connect with his father more so than any tangible threat.

Will Smith’s acting would have saved the day, if there was some kind of action for him to perform. Instead, Smith’s character spends most of the movie laid up in a chair with a pained expression on his face, just like the audience.

Go on then

I don't want to shit on Gary's writing, because I'm sure Will Smith and Jaden contributed plenty to the Scientology adventure.(Much like Cruise with Oblivion, or Travolta with Battlefield Earth.)

Guys, there are a lot of reviews out there that would answer your questions. Just saying.

I don't hate it. It's just that I never watched it or really will watch it.

I'm not super familiar with Scientology - what were the overt references to it in After Earth?

The original story was actually by Will Smith if the movie credits are to be believed. Shamalaldkanand and Whitta just wrote it for him. I thought the story was pretty not great personally, there's like no explanations for anything and plot holes run rampant.

Also, Will Smith's kid really is a terrible actor. I didn't get all the hate for him until I saw the movie.

I'm not a fan of Will Smith forcing his kid on us. I want more Will Smith movies and all I get is MiB III.

Diiiiiiiiiiiiiisgusting.

This is pretty much it, but 2/3 of these reasons are bullshit movie politics no one should care about.

All in all it's just an average movie. Not really very exciting either storywise or effectswise 6/10.

Exactly. No need to be defensive in having a differing opinion. It just so happens to be a minority view.

I haven't seen it but I'm not really a fan of Will Smith and I dislike everything I've seen that kid in; seems like it would be pretty hard for him to fuck this movie up though, it's mostly just a dumb action movie right?

Shyalaman doesn't really bother me, I wasn't nuts about his early stuff and I don't really hate his later stuff the way most people do; the only movie that I've seen of his that was offensively bad was the airbender movie.

This is pretty much what I was going to say. When I watched it I did not hate the film, but this is one of those movies where, after a month, I had forgot everything about it. The only thing about the film that I could remember was that it felt like Scientology recruitment propoganda. Plus, Jaden Smith is a mostly terrible actor, but then I am biased against child actors because almost none of them can act as convincingly as an adult.

What the fuck kinda accent / tone was Will Smith trying to do in the movie? Like a mentally challenged morgan freeman or something? It was distracting as FUCKKKKK

Marketing-wise, it is the biggest bait and switch I have seen in movies in a long time. I wanted to see a Will Smith flick, not a Jaden Smith joint.

Oh yeah, I love coming here to the letters page of PC Gamer! ... ... when was he "our own"? He's on Tested a lot... you know that site founded by the Mythbusters guys :-|

Also, I haven't seen the film, but so much of it looked like junk that I wasn't going to waste my money on it. People might say that I have no right to criticise, but 75% of the job of ANY movie is to make you want to see it, and this movie failed on so many levels.

Will Smith is quickly becoming irrelevant.

People hate After Earth for any and all of the following reasons:

A) Nepotism

B) Gary Whitta

C) M. Night Shyamalan

D) Will Smith

E) Little Will Smith

F) It's a poorly executed film with an interesting premise.

I'm going for all of the above, personally.

How dare you sully the name of Gary Whitta by insinuating that...

Nah, just kidding. In all honesty, he deserves criticism for the movie as much as anyone. Also, I'm going to come out and say it: I hated Book of Eli.