At some point in the future, after abandoning an environmentally-ravaged Earth, humanity bumps into some aliens, and the encounters are not of the friendly kind. The aliens unleash a wave of genetically engineered killing machines named "Ursas", which despite their name don't look anything like bears. Ursas literally sense human fear, which they use to hunt us down. I can't help but think that "big guns" would kill us just as dead as six-legged skin-sacks, but wse need the latter for the plot so we'll go along with it.
In any case, it seems that Humanity is Doomed, at least until the improbably named soldier "Cypher Raige" discovers a way to transcend fear. This makes him literally invisible to the Ursas, so he is able to kill them easily, and he begins teaching the technique to others.
None of this is spoilers, by the way - this isn't the plot of the film, it's a summary of the lifeless and overly long narration that begins the film. The actual plot is about the son of Cypher Raige, his seemingly futile struggle to live up to the example set by his father, and what happens when they are accidentally stranded on the long-abandoned Earth with an Ursa, and their survival comes to depend entirely on the younger Raige.
After Earth was a film I was mildly interested in when it hit cinemas, but never got around to seeing, particularly since word of mouth was that it was neither particularly good, nor bad in an interesting way. And honestly, "bland" is a solid one word review. The "victory requires that you control your emotions" concept requires both Will Smith and his real life son Jaden to deliberately constrain and stilt their performances, for one thing. Perhaps more damningly, the plot elements feel underdeveloped. For instance, the film's title references Earth, much of the action is set on a post-human Earth, one of Cypher's few moments of emotion is when he realises they are about to crash on Earth, and he even says "everything on this planet is genetically engineered to kill humans". But none of this has any real pay-off or significance. It could have been set on any planet and it would have worked just as well. The only real impact it has is that it gives the production guys the freedom to just use slightly modified real world animals as the main threats other than the Ursa, and preserve the Ursa's position as the one truly "alien monster" in the film.
None of this is spoilers, by the way - this isn't the plot of the film, it's a summary of the lifeless and overly long narration that begins the film. The actual plot is about the son of Cypher Raige, his seemingly futile struggle to live up to the example set by his father, and what happens when they are accidentally stranded on the long-abandoned Earth with an Ursa, and their survival comes to depend entirely on the younger Raige.
After Earth was a film I was mildly interested in when it hit cinemas, but never got around to seeing, particularly since word of mouth was that it was neither particularly good, nor bad in an interesting way. And honestly, "bland" is a solid one word review. The "victory requires that you control your emotions" concept requires both Will Smith and his real life son Jaden to deliberately constrain and stilt their performances, for one thing. Perhaps more damningly, the plot elements feel underdeveloped. For instance, the film's title references Earth, much of the action is set on a post-human Earth, one of Cypher's few moments of emotion is when he realises they are about to crash on Earth, and he even says "everything on this planet is genetically engineered to kill humans". But none of this has any real pay-off or significance. It could have been set on any planet and it would have worked just as well. The only real impact it has is that it gives the production guys the freedom to just use slightly modified real world animals as the main threats other than the Ursa, and preserve the Ursa's position as the one truly "alien monster" in the film.
After Earth is not bad, but it'd probably be more interesting if it was.
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