Zombie Column: After Earth

What's this? A zombie column three weeks in a row? Am I getting back into movies? (no). Have I lost my mind? (yes). What's going on? What's going on is this is a coincidence. I got a sudden invitation to StarTrek a few weeks ago, which was awesome (about 87% as awesome as FF6). Last week as Fast and Furious 6, which we'd planned on seeing for quite a while. Then this past week my brother's family was in town for some regional church stuff, so my brothers and I took the chance to go to see a movie together. It's probably the first time all three of us have gone to see a movie in years. ThePhantom Menace may have been that movie. Ian and I share similar tastes in movies, but Duncan actually has movie-going standards (one of his favourites is 12 Angry Men), so it's not often that I can go to a movie with him and have us both enjoy the experience.

Anyway, we went to see After Earth. The big question Ian and I had going into it was if the power of Awesome (Will Smith) could overcome the power of Suck (the director was M. Night. Shyamalan). We tied the trailer game (Duncan sat out, because he pays attention to more important things than pop-culture. He's like, responsible and all). I got Thor, Ian got Percy Jackson, I got White House Down (I'm all in on that), and Ian got Grown-ups 2 about half a second before me. We laughed at the trailer, but Duncan astutely said "And now you've seen all the jokes in the movie."

After Earth opens with narration by Jaden Smith, telling the history of Earth. We left it, seeking a less polluted/warring planet, and landed somewhere else. Aliens came to kick us out by bio-engineering hunters that smelled the pheromones we exuded when we're afraid. A small cadre of warriors learned not to fear, and they fought back. The rest of us tried not to giggle at what a preposterous development that is.

I mean, come on. An alien race that can bio-engineer animals can't tailor a virus to kill us all? They smell our fear, but not our sweat or other excretions? Why can't they bio-engineer eyes (alright, eyes are hard). Ears, maybe? This just seems dumb. Also, why are aliens always so technologically limited? If they developed only 1% faster than us, they'd already be 140 million years more advanced than us (with a 14 billion year old universe). 5 million years ago, we barely had anything that remotely resembled a human. 200 years ago, we barely had electricity. In 140 million years, we could be pure energy. And yes, pop culture insists on aliens that can be fought with our weapons, that are within at most a few thousand years of us technologically. It's fairly limiting. And stupid.

Anyway, in an effort to get to know his son, Will Smith takes him intergalactically camping, only their ship malfunctions and they crash land on Earth. "Everything has evolved to kill us" he says, which I think is wrong. Firstly, not everything on Earth evolved to kill humans. Secondly, it's only been a few thousand years - how much could a species evolve in that time? Thirdly, humans have been gone for most of that time - how could animals evolve to kill missing prey?

Still, it's a survival story, and Jaden Smith does a good job of portraying waaaayyy in over his head. Will has a broken leg, so he's stuck in one place. Jaden has to trek to a broken part of their ship to retrieve and set off an intergalactic flare. Also, they brought along one of those animals that smells fear (it was supposed to be a military exercise), but it escaped in the crash, so they'll have to deal with that at some point.

That's pretty much the movie. It's not a great movie, but it's the not the pile of crap I expected. Ian thought the power of awesome outweighed the power of suck. Duncan thought the opposite. I thought it was a wash. The music was decent, there were a few jokes, but there wasn't a whole lot of action, there were scenes in there whose only purpose was to be called back to near the end of the movie, and the actors couldn't stick to their accent. I think it was supposed to be southern, but they kept on forgetting - "Oh yeah, my character has an accent" and so some scenes had it, and some didn't. Still, very good special effects (say what you want, but Shyamalan can do effects) and quite good scenery. But it's not enough to redeem this movie. Worth a look at some point, but it's only DVD quality at most. Probably free-on-TV, according to my rating system.