After Earth, its worth a Look

"After Earth, its worth a Look" 

(Aspiring to reach beyond the concepts)

By Glenn Peppers 

Will Smith as General Cyhper Raige

I saw the Movie "After Earth," and I thought to myself, "This movie isn't as bad as the critics made it out to be. Although I did find it quite slow, and loaded with way too much non-effective dialogue. Yet it was worth seeing on a snowy Sunday evening! Will Smith's role as General Cypher Raige wasn't as impactful as I think it could have been. His role was that of an unemotional detached intergalactic military man who was a stranger to his children and wife. I feel his battle hard persona would have been better played by (dare I typically Hollywood say) Denzel Washington. 

In my opinion, Washington's deadpan'ed intensity and stern command would have made General Raige's lack of fear, and detachment more believable! Smith's real life son, Jaden plays Kitai Raige, the General's son who in effect is trying his hardest to please his dad by becoming apart of this intergalactic space army, was good as this new cadet trying to make good, yet he was annoying to me in that he was quite the opposite of his father, constantly being smothered with fear because of an incident that happened to him as a child! 

Jaden Smith as Kitai Raige

The movie's juice was that fear can be conquered. Will Smith's General Raige had gotten to that point in his existence where he feared nothing! I think to this effect the movie scared some folks in that most people are so use to seeing black men portrayed as clowns and buffoons in films that powerful dramatic roles (ones that don't call for us to be noble slaves or butlers) that diffuse negative/fearful roles, scare certain audiences. 

Face it, some folks just aren't ready for a fearless black man kicking ass in the vast regions of space! Yet after seeing the film, I'm quite sure that this was not the main reason After Earth was not a box office hit! I'll say it again. It was just too slow! A film like this is hard to pull off when there are basically two people holding up a script. You need a plot and a sub-plot, and an antagonist and a protagonist in a film! A formidable villain and a perfect resolve to most any movie script! The escaped monster from the pod just wasn't good enough for me, for you did see him until the end of the movie.

Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian 

Yet I thought the film had great visuals. It was not over done or too Star War-ish. Just perfect for a Post Earth existence! What I loved about this film is that there were people of color about! In most films, cartoons and stories about space or the future. People of color are always lacking! I had a saying once. "There are more black folks in space than Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back." 

M. Night Shyamalan  

I love M. Night Shyamalan's directing, yet like most of his films, he seems to never bring the movie beyond the concept of of what is scary, or plot oriented. My biggest problem with Shyamalan's directing is that he directs as if the very concept idea alone will scare you, instead of what you can actually drudge out of a script, and take it beyond its initial concept. Case in point: "The Village" and "The Happening" Great concepts. Lame scripts and resolve in each film. At the end they both left me saying to myself... "Is that all?"

In this world of Fast Cut/Michael Bey editing and directing. After Earth was just too slow for me. I think I liked it mainly because of who was in the movie, and because of some of the visuals... Oh yeah, and because of those really cool, three section neon Chop Sticks! I gotta find those!

Glenn Peppers