Movie Review: After Earth

I have been waiting a long time to see M. Night Shyamalan direct a competent big budget summer movie. In a way, After Earth is that film. There's just one problem: After Earth isn't really his film. Will Smith penned the story that the script is based on specifically as a vehicle for himself and his son Jaden, he chose the writer and the director.

There are a few serious missteps that keep me from recommending this film outright. For one, Will Smith's portrayal of Cypher Raige (seriously...) is so cold and distant for the majority of the film that he garners little to no empathy from the viewer. I get what he was trying to do, playing the career special forces soldier who spends so much time away from his family that he is unable to switch off the soldier in his downtime, but I would have liked to see an actor of Smith's caliber transcend that stereotype and mold a more complex character.

Jaden Smith is still not a strong enough actor to carry a film of this caliber, especially when his character spends much of the time as the sole character on screen. He spends much of the time either mimicking the serious glare of his father, or pantomiming panic so over-dramatically that it borders on absurdity. I don't want to get too down on him, though, he's only 14, and with the right roles, could mature into a fine actor.

The movie isn't all bad, though, and surprisingly, the best part for me was the direction and the special effects. The narrative is very straightforward, the creatures and landscapes well crafted and believable. This is not a poorly directed trainwreck, a la The Last Airbender. The action scenes are tight and focused, with no jerky camera movements or hard cuts at inopportune times. I enjoyed the cinematography immensely; the abandoned, human-adverse Earth is gorgeous and deadly.

I can't tell you to go spend $20 on a ticket and refreshments to see this in the theater unless you are a Will Smith fanatic or a Shyamalan loyalist, especially as there are so many first rate films like Star Trek Into Darkness, Iron Man 3, and Fast And Furious 6 still out there. However, if you should have a lazy day, and have seen all the stronger films out there, After Earth is by no means the worst use of your time. It's just the weakest link in a very strong summer movie season. I give it 2 1/2 humble buttons.

New Pacific Rim UK Trailer Looks Exciting!

So Warner Brothers has posted a new Pacific Rim Trailer, and the more footage I see of the monsters and robots with CGI firmly in place, the more excited I get! Guillermo Del Toro is already one of my favorite directors, and giant robots versus giant monsters, sans Michael Bay, has the potential to be a HUGE summer hit. I'm ready for it, what are your thoughts?

Movie Review- Star Trek: Into Darkness

In 2009, J.J Abrams took on the monumental task of rebooting the beloved Star Trek franchise in such a way that it didn't disillusion the hardcore Trekkies, but was still accessible to casual viewers and newcomers to the franchise; to say that he was highly successful is, in my opinion, one hell of an understatement. One might say that it would be a hard act to follow, and highly difficult to surpass.

But surpass it Abrams has with the sophomore outing of the crew of the Starship Enterprise. The bare bones of the plot is this; after a vicious attack on a Starfleet archive in London and a subsequent attack on a meeting of high ranking officials, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), and the rest of the Enterprise crew are ordered by Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) to hunt down the criminal John Morrison (Benedict Cumberbatch, whose character's true identity is really no secret ::cough cough:: Khan ::cough cough::) on the Klingon homeworld of Kronos, and to take along a batch of highly classified photon torpedoes to basically vaporize him.

And that's really all I can say about the plot without giving away twists and turns that you are going to want to experience firsthand, preferably in IMAX or similar branded huge screen 3D. Trust me, the extra money for the large screen experience is completely justified. What I can speak to is the wonderful acting by the entire cast. Pine and Quinto are in top form, and it is a wonderful thing to see their blossoming friendship even as they continually butt heads in matters of protocol and humanity. It is that relationship that made the original series and the subsequent films so wonderful to watch, and here it is treated with a nuance that gives the film it's heart. John Cho's second turn as Sulu is also enjoyable to watch, as he gets to spend a little time in the Captain's chair, and gives a glimpse at his future role as a starship captain in his own right in later years.

Simon Pegg is much more comfortable as Scotty this time around, and gets in on the action a bit as well. Karl Urban as "Bones" McCoy is delightfully crotchety and bitingly sarcastic, but always loyal.  Benedict Cumberbatch is the perfect Khan, coldly methodical, fiercely vindictive, and nigh indestructible. And man, it's good to see Peter Weller back on film, particularly in the role of Admiral Marcus, who has some significant screen time, unlike Tyler Perry's Admiral in the first film.

So don't wait to see this film. Go as soon as is humanly possible and see it on the biggest screen your local cinema has. This is going to be one of the biggest films of the summer, and it deserves every bit of it. I give it five of five humble buttons.