After Earth - In Theaters Now!

Disclosure: I received passes to attend a screening of After Earth. 

After Earth (PG-13) is in theaters now, and I was fortunate to attend an advance screening of the movie a couple of days ago. 

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 must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.

After Earth began with an explosive glimpse of a pivotal moment in Kitai's and Cypher's lives, and then we learned a few things important to the movie's storyline - how humans no longer live on Earth, and instead they live on Nova Prime, and how Cypher used his "ghosting" abilities to defeat creatures known as Ursa.

After deciding to take Kitai on one last trip before he retires, Cypher and his crew find themselves in the middle of a treacherous meteor shower, and they end up crashing onto the inhospitable Earth.

Seriously injured, Cypher advises Kitai he must obtain an emergency beacon in the tail of the spacecraft, which is 100 kilometers away, or else they will die (they are the only two survivors).

Although the ending is quite predictable, overall I thought the movie was good - it had a good amount of action, the special effects were pretty good, and I enjoyed watching Kitai go on his mission, as he faced numerous perils and had to find the courage to keep moving forward.

There were a handful of slightly funny moments throughout the film, but for the most part, the story is a straightforward action-adventure movie.  
 
I thought Jaden Smith did a nice job portraying a son who longed for the attention of his father while also wanting to prove that he was not a coward and could do what was needed for him and his father to survive.

However, I thought Will Smith as a stoic father did not seem like a good fit.  It seemed like he tried too hard to be emotionless, and I was hoping to see a little more of the humor, charm, and wit that I'm so used to seeing from him. 

Undoubtedly Will Smith will still be a huge box office draw. 

Ultimately, the depiction of Earth's future and its creatures, as well as the technology possible in a thousand years, was pretty cool, but the relationship between parent and child resonated with me, and it's what I enjoyed most about the movie.