After Earth 2013

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: After Earth may lack the neck-swiveling awfulness of Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, but it quickly sinks in its logorrheic solemnity. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Mr. Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, are producers on "After Earth," which suggests that there was no one on the production who could really say no to him. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Is "After Earth" the worst movie ever made? Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Though it's meant to be pulse-pounding, After Earth is a lethargic slog. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: Shyamalan is clearly a director-for-hire here, his disinterest palpable from first frame to last. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: Shyamalan's sensibility may not be enough to turn After Earth into a great (or even very good) film, but it does yield interesting-and at times strikingly realized-results. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Some of "After Earth" is intriguing, if you ignore the premise and the story and the direction and much of Jaden Smith's performance. Other than that... Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: A passably entertaining adventure best suited to 10-year-old boys. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Much of Will's dialogue consists of life lessons imparted to the boy, and they sound like a motivational seminar. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "After Earth" won't change your world, but it's attractive ... Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: It's impossible to take this movie seriously, certainly not as seriously as it takes itself. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: It's just a somewhat mundane coming-of-age story with a terribly miscast lead. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: What do you give the kid who has everything? His own summer action-adventure blockbuster, of course ... Well, it certainly beats a cake and a card, but considering what a well-crafted bore After Earth turns out to be, perhaps not by much. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The movie takes off from a concept as basic as a videogame, and it sticks to that concept, without surprise. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: The level to which 'After Earth' is a catastrophe is amazing. Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: [A] disappointingly generic film ... Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: There is no small irony that this sci-fi action adventure is about surviving a serious crash. The scorched earth left behind by "After Earth" is sure to leave a scar on everyone involved. Read more

Charlie McCollum, San Jose Mercury News: Bits of the plot, including the environmental science of the new Earth, make no sense. The dialogue is leaden. And the special effects are surprisingly unconvincing ... Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Too bad, too, that the CGI creatures in the film look as fake as the monkeys in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Read more

Mick LaSalle, Hearst Newspapers: M. Night Shyamalan is branching out, coming up with new ways to make bad movies. His plan must be to exhaust all possibilities, so as to eventually come full circle and make a good one by accident. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: "After Earth" isn't just chaotic and desperate -- and grindingly slow -- it's also lazy. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: As drama, After Earth offers no surprises; as action, it's rarely stimulating; as a parenting manual, it seems that Will has thrown Jaden into water that's a little too deep. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The truly sad thing is, this wouldn't be a bad story if you stripped away all the sci-fi flash and psychobabble. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: A disastrous father-son endeavor about a calamitous father-son expedition, After Earth doesn't play to the strengths of any of its major participants. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Summer 2013 has its first bomb, and sadly, it's landed right on Will Smith. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Basically, this is Smith and his real-life son, Jaden (both affecting ridiculous mid-Atlantic accents) talking the audience to death for something like 90 minutes before the closing credits. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: After Earth is refreshing in that it's not rife with fast-cuts, whooshing camera shots, and overblown visual effects. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The characters are emotionally neutered; the average viewer won't care about them. The pacing is plodding and uneven. Read more

Matt Zoller Seitz, Chicago Sun-Times: It's no classic, but it's a special movie: spectacular and wise. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: After Earth merits comparison with 2000's Battlefield Earth, John Travolta's godawful film tribute to the sci-fi novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Yes, it's that bad. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Even with his charismatic dad in his earpiece calling the shots, Jaden can't turn himself into a movie star by sheer force of Will. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "After Earth" is a work of hubris magnified by multiple miscalculations, the kind of film that would cause Ed Wood to excuse himself and skulk to the exit. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: [Shyamalan's] grasp of film fundamentals is so tenuous that this hot-air balloon gets blown into the rarefied air of the worst movies ever made. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: A film in which the text and subtext-an effortlessly gifted father presses his less-talented son to follow in his footsteps-are in perfect alignment. Alas, only in one of the two does the story end happily. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Globe and Mail: After Earth at least looks distinctive, and the movie's overall atmosphere of close-quarter jungle delirium is enhanced by the cramped, earth-toned interiors of spaceships, off-world colony condos and crashed cockpits. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The only value in watching it is to see an expensive disaster slowly unfold. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: After Earth tells the story of an inexperienced boy trying desperately to please his father while making one mistake after another, and as such, it becomes an uncomfortable metaphor for itself. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: Most disappointing is the film's lack of ambition, as what could have been a sparky mainstream space opera becomes just another tedious jungle chase movie. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: What undoes the film is its rather rancid parent-child sentimentality (a Shyamalan staple, admittedly) and a charisma-free performance from the younger Smith that suggests the apple has fallen very far from the tree, indeed. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: Jaden is fine at running, jumping, fearful trembling, and affecting steely resolution. He doesn't yet have his father's charisma; perhaps to help him out, dad opted not to bring that charisma to the set. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: By the standards of M. Night's Shyamalan's recent films, After Earth is surprisingly not horrible. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: The futuristic production design is blandly generic, the special effects, props and costumes cheap and slapdash-looking. Read more