Just recently saw this movie. While the plot is pretty common sci-fi fare (humans vs. aliens), I thought it was a pretty entertaining film with a great message (overcoming your fears in life). It is rare to see a film where a BM is not only the "supreme commander", smart, respected, accomplished, and the literal savior of the world. He has a loving, stable relationship with his wife, and is seeking to gain a closer relationship with his son. The portrayal of BM with these qualities are what we need to see more of in film. I'm not saying it should have been movie of year, just that hollywood still has a problem seeing BM portrayed in a powerful, intelligent, positive light. http://news.yahoo.com/smith-flop-ea...yaTVuBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDM0OF8x
The movie was terrible, but I do agree that black men don't get portrayed in a positive light much. There are no Marvel black superheroe movies at all.
I think the bad reviews for After Earth are a reflection on M. Night Shyamalan's mediocrity as a writer/director. If Will Smith is at fault here, it is only in his bad judgment in choosing to do this movie in the first place.
It was too formulaic and had built in negatives for most reviewers, namely an A-list star casting HIS OWN SON in a co-starring role to jump start his budding acting career. It was a no-win situation. Unless Jaden(sp) Smith was a revelation as a young actor, the film was going to get panned for the obvious nepotism in the casting. BTW what the hell happened to M Night??? Dude was supposed to be this generation's Hitchcock. Whoops on that.:smt005
This is a repost of something I said in another thread ... A lot of cats were just hating on that film because it was the "in" thing to do. If Will had not put Jaden in the movie and went with someone else, people would have loved it. But, they hated on him and his son. Didn't matter that Jaden had two or three movies under his belt already that were hits. He was about due for a big budget action flick. I really did not understand the reason for all the hate that movie received. Much of it from people who never saw it.
Is that the movie with the Cyber Rage character? Straight face...... Cyber Rage. Looked like shit. I'm basing this off the "Honest Movie Trailer" video.
Oh yeah, I forgot about Blade. See, there's so many white superheroe movies I forgot Blade even existed.
Cypher Rage. Even worse than 'Cyber', lol. I think it got panned as much because of the increasing suspicions of Will being involved in Scientology. That pseudo-scientific felgercarb has killed more actors' careers than Vader killed Jedi. 'Battlefield: Earth', anyone?
Cosign. To be fair I think M Night had more to do with that. Everything he's attached to bombs as of late.
I recall an interview with a panel of film critics on tv. While they had praise for M. Night Shyamalan's achievements at the beginning and being called "The Next Alfred Hitchcock", one man in the panel, a psychic, said, "He's not going to go any farther than what he has done." I saw the films, The Village and The Happening. Both films had interesting premises and endings. I saw a film he had produced called Devil(Bokeem Woodbine was in that film). It is worth a look. I had not seen After Earth yet. I had read some reviews of the film and thought the critics were too quick to say that it was a bad film. Film critic Michael Medved once said in an interview that when he goes to the movies, he meets other film critics after the viewing and some of them get together and compare notes. A lot of them even ask to go along with their assessments. It is wrong, but, it happens. I doubt Gene Siskell and Roger Ebert ever had to worry about that issue.
I said this in the Nerdz Lounge when this movie was briefly talked about in that thread : It's a decent movie, but it's a poor attempt at a sci-fi movie and the blame for that falls on M. Night Shyamalan. Will Smith came up with the idea for the overall story which was to be in a contemporary setting much the same as The Pursuit of Happyness, but M. Night Shyamalan convinced him to try something unique by setting the story in a future sci-fi setting since hardly any sci-fi movies feature black leads. Shyamalan failed to create a compelling sci-fi /future backdrop for this movie to warrant it being the setting for the story rather than being in a contemporary setting.