After Earth

            Thanks to this song I can no longer say 'Earth.'  It's always 'Erf.'  Well, this part of Independence Day doesn't help either.  Fortunately you get to hear Will Smith say 'Earth' again.  Unfortunately(?) it's fully enunciated.

            On to the review!

            After Earth is, at its heart, a father/son movie.  For that, I cannot give it enough credit.  They could have easily turned this film into some sort of galaxy-spanning epic but to their credit, the filmmakers did not.

            The movie takes place in a future where humanity had to flee Earth after polluting it to the point that it was uninhabitable. A thousand years later, a new threat has arisen: aliens. Not just any aliens, either. Alien warriors that, while blind, are specially bred to smell the pheromones released by mankind when they feel fear.

            Enter the savior of mankind, Cypher Raige (Will Smith), a man who has learned to feel no fear, thus becoming invisible to the alien Ursa.  In order to make things a bit more corny, this ability is called 'Ghosting.'

            Now, General Cypher has a bit of a problem.  You see, his son Kitai (Jaden Smith) is trying very hard to follow in his father's footsteps, but he has a glaring disability in the form of being capable of actual emotion.  Even though he is still a teenager, he expects more from himself and believes his father does as well.  Just think of Cypher as the High Expectations Asian Father meme (with less racism) and you've got the right idea.

            So what is a father to do when his son wants to follow in his footsteps?  That's right!  Field trip!  In this case, Cypher takes Kitai with him on a training mission, where fellow Rangers will receive the benefits of his boundless wisdom.  At least in theory, because something goes wrong and they all crash land on--wait for it--Earth!
            Even worse, the father and son duo are the only survivors, they have limited food and water, Cypher is hurt, and the rescue beacon is 1000 kilometers away.

            That's just the first 30 minutes.  It's a very busy movie.

            The rest of the film is devoted to Kitai's trek across a verdant world that does not want humanity there.  He must fight off all manner of monsters and face dozens of fears in order to get to the beacon and save both his life and his father's.  Also, he falls down a lot.  No, seriously.  There may be close to a half-dozen instances of Jaden Smith laying on his back or side after being hurt/surprised/etc.  That was weird.

            So what about everything else?  Well, the film is gorgeous, there's no getting around that.  For such a CGI-heavy film, I wasn't really bothered by any sense of fakeness.  The futuristic technology is cool for the most part, but I didn't really get the hippie-vibe from all the man-made structures. 

            Jaden Smith continues to surprise me with his acting abilities, while Will seems to be coasting more and more on former fame.  What you have is a mindless summer film that doesn't really impress in any way unless you have zero expectations; then you're marginally impressed.  It is the ultimate inoffensive summer movie that you can probably take kids of any age to see as long as they are not frightened by CGI violence.

            Wait, there is one more thing.  The accents.  They were absolute bullshit.  They sounded like some sort of strange, country-boy-meets-British-nobleman thing.  It's like the director told all of his actors to talk like they moved from Alabama to Ireland, lived there for 10 years and then tried to become nobility.  What kind of idiot would fuck with accents that play no part in a film other than to cause a distraction?

            Directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

            Oh.

Men in Black III

            One thing I can appreciate when I sit down to watch a long-not-awaited sequel is honesty.  When absolutely nobody was clamoring to see the continued adventures of So-and-So, it’s nice when the film acknowledges that.  Oh yeah, and you also need to write a decent script if you’re going to convince people it’s worth seeing.

            On to the review!

            Here’s your number: 10.  That would be ten as in years, also known as a decade.  This is how far you have to travel back in time in order to see Men in Black II.  That movie itself was a sequel to a film that had come out 5 years prior.  Expect MIB4 in 2027.

            Oh yeah, and speaking of travelling through time, guess what the third movie in this never-really-planned-for trilogy revolves around?  If you said ‘I don’t really care,’ then you’re in lockstep with most of America!  For a movie starring a well-liked an respected actor (Tommy Lee Jones, reprising his role as K) and a money-maker (Will Smith as J), there seemed to be almost no excitement built up for Men in Black III. 

            Fortunately for us everything turns out much, much better than MIBII did, and the addition of Josh Brolin as young K was a stroke of genius.  That they didn’t try to over-complicate things by adding any love interest for J and only super-super briefly alluding to a romance for K was also greatly appreciated.  What we got was a slim, action-packed movie that focused on a few agents saving the world from imminent alien destruction.

            Our film starts us off in the here-and-now, 14 years after J is recruited into the Men in Black, and we get to see just how little anything has changed.  K is still surly, J is still talkative, and they still get stuff done.  We’re reminded of just how emotionally lacking K is when he gives a speech at Z’s funeral.  While humorously short, it is also pretty damn terrible.  They then lock horns a few more times until we’re introduced to the new villain, Boris the Animal (Jermaine Clement).  This guy is so dangerous they went and built a prison just for him.  On the moon.

            So of course he escapes and sets into motion a plan to go back in time, kill K and destroy Earth.

Since this is movie land, J is the only person who notices K’s disappearance from the time stream and goes back to 1969 in an effort to save him.  There he’s aided by young K and a 5-dimensional being, Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), whose constantly bemused and bewildered character can see infinite possibilities and has to wait for the present to catch up to all the available futures.

As usual, the special effects are impeccable.  While the aliens have always been cartoonish in the MIB world, Boris is genuinely menacing and some of the thug aliens reveal good creepy qualities.  As usual, everything is well integrated and you don’t really notice any green-screen shenanigans.

Mix it all together and what we end up with is a light and fluffy summer film.  It’s certainly action-packed, but the nature of the blockbuster has passed it by.  There really isn’t enough world-shattering action to justify the title, but that’s okay.  Three movies in, Men in Black may have finally found its perfect niche: an action movie for people who find mindless summer films too thoughtful.