MONSTERS AND ZOMBIES: A TALE OF TWO MOVIES

Monsters and Zombies: A Tale of Two Movies

Saturday, June 22, 2013

It was the best of times for some, and the worst of times for others. Today, in the darkness of movie theaters, I watched Brad Pitt flee from zombies and Mike Wazowski flee from human children. The human race faced extinction, and famous monster heroes faced expulsion. Pixar Animation hit another home run, and the zombie apocalypse genre added a solid new entry to its historic ranks.

Today marked the third time I’ve seen two different movies in theaters in one day. Back in the winter of 2003, I saw Cold Mountain and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King back-to-back in the course of one epic but emotionally-draining afternoon, and then in the winter of 2009, I visited the theater once in the early afternoon, once at night, to see a pair of Oscar bait, history-based (ultimately overrated) sports dramas, Invictus and The Blind Side.

Today, it was the zombie apocalypse adaptation World War Z and the family-friendly prequel Monsters University.

World War Z

Length: 116 minutes              

Rated PG-13 for intense action violence and some gory/bloody content, language, and disturbing zombie images

My Grade: B

At the brisk, early morning time of 11 A.M., which might be the earliest starting time of any movie I’ve ever seen in theaters, I settled in for the big-screen adaptation of Max Brooks’ hit bestseller, World War Z. Directed by Oscar-nominee Marc Forster and starring the popular-as-ever Brad Pitt, Z comes into theaters riding its popular name and hoping for at least one big weekend payday thanks to the promise of portrayal of a zombie apocalypse.

Well, for starters, it tramples on the joking mood people always have when they consider where they would go, and what they would do, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, because it definitely fails to make such a cataclysmic event look like any fun. Like the book, it gives no real origin for the rabies virus that begins infecting people, sometimes “turning” them in as little as 12 seconds after being bitten. And we see the mass outbreak of the disease in downtown Philadelphia through the eyes of a well-to-do family.

Pitt plays Gerry Lane, a former UN investigator who’s in morning traffic with his loving wife (Mireille Enos) and adorable daughters (Sterling Jerins and Abigail Hargrove) when they begin to see twitchy, snarling, weirdly-acrobatic people tackling bystanders and mauling them. Cars crash, people scream, zombies shriek and head-butt their way through car windows to get at the fresh homo sapien meat on the other side, and a sense of real, terrifying tension is set. Through a government contact (Fana Mokoena), Gerry and his family are escorted to safety aboard a quarantined aircraft carrier, but are only allowed to stay on the basis that Gerry agrees to help look for a cure.

His military-sanctioned journey takes him from the rainy wastelands of South Korea—where he learns any little sound can trigger an all-out assault from the undead—to the fortified city of Jerusalem, where a towering wall and strict military security seem to promise a sanctuary, to a high-tech science lab in Eastern Europe, where Gerry and a few other scientists brainstorm possible cures. All the while, the size of earth’s healthy population plummets and Gerry’s family loses hope of ever seeing him again.

World War Z is tremendously gripping—a few scenes where characters need to stay quiet to keep their presence unknown to the undead make you afraid to breathe too loudly—but all it really has to offer are the scenes of zombies overrunning the world. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, given that these large-scale scenes of the infected attacking the healthy were largely absent from the big-budget aftermath flick I Am Legend, and the savagely intense survival tale, 28 Days Later (not to mention the cute but enjoyably earnest Warm Bodies), so they’re real treats. The Philadelphia raid, the breaching of Jerusalem, and outbreak aboard an in-flight airplane prove arm-rest-clenching, electrifying sequences, and there are a few great moments late in the lab, but World War Z offers nothing more than that. Pitt, though no chameleon, has always proven a solid screen presence and an actor of considerable intensity, but Gerry is one of the least-compelling characters he’s ever played. His family is but a plot device. And regrettably, after all its impressive Earth-storming thunder, Z shudders immediately to a halt upon the discovery of a cure to the zombie virus. Then, as if afraid the audience will lose interest watching the de-zombiefication of earth, the movies hurries to its anticlimactic finish with an uninspired hodgepodge of voiceovers and clips of zombies being blown up. It’s funny, because this same “cleaning up” of a zombie-overrun earth was done to such uplifting effect in Warm Bodies a couple months ago.

Bottom Line: World War Z offers a compelling, edge-of-your-seat-tense experience with some fantastic spectacle, but it’s short on story and characterization, and ends meekly. I enjoyed watching it, but in a summer already featuring Superman, Iron Man and Khan, Z may disappear from the limelight quickly.

Monsters University

Length: 110 minutes

Rated G (contains some mildly scary moments)

My Grade: B+

I wanted to see World War Z, but I had a feeling I would enjoy Monsters University more. Boy, did I. The prequel to 2001’s Monsters, Inc.,University offers one of Pixar’s breeziest outings, lighter and funnier than some of the more somber installments. Of course, it didn’t hurt Up, Wall-E or Brave to really touch the heart and the tear ducts, but this new Monsters proves every bit as watchable.

Did you ever wonder how the mismatched pair of pint-sized, one-eyed Mike Wazowski (voice of Billy Crystal) and hulking, furry James P. Sullivan (voice of John Goodman) met? University answers that question by presenting them in their monster teens, with Mike arriving at the titular institution a dork full of excitement and dream-fulfillment, aiming for the stars, while Sully, the son of a famous scarer, swaggers in planning to get by on brawn and reputation. Both want to be scarers, which were identified in the earlier film as monsters who scare children for a living, making them scream so those screams can be recorded and then used to power their monster cities. Scarers are all the rage, but getting into the Scare program means winning the respect and approval of Dean Hardscrabble (voice of Helen Mirren), a famously scary figure who looks a cross between a Gothic dragon and a giant millipede.

The familiar college-movie tropes are in place right away. Mike is a book-devouring teacher’s pet, who has a fellow nerdy roommate (Randall Boggs, voiced by Steve Buscemi) and a lifelong dream of becoming a scarer, even though everyone claims he isn’t scary. Sully, meanwhile, impresses his teachers and peers with his bulk and his thunderous roars, and gains immediate admission to the top fraternity on campus. The two share a mutual ire almost immediately, and when an escalated squabble ends in the desecration of a sacred university artifact, the two are banished from the Scare program unless they can, together, lead a fraternity to victory in the campus-wide “Scare Games”. Of course, that fraternity is the lame Oozma Kappa, the fraternity answer to the Island of Misfit Toys.

The voices are all charming and effective, the animation’s a delight (the university’s terrifying, tentacled librarian is a particular standout, with a group of demonic sorority girls a close second) and there’s a late real-life-scary bit that evokes comparisons to Insidious and Paranormal Activity, where things go bump in the night and move around seemingly of their own accord. The emotional arc is the same as it was in the first movie (Sully and Mike each have to swallow a plug of pride and admit they need each other to be effective; Sully, that he needs Mike’s brains and ingenuity, and Mike, that he needs Sully’s strength), but, like most of Pixar’s best, this is one G-rated movie adults and teens will enjoy just as much as the kids-if not more-and that’s not a bad thing (all the people in the audience I could hear howling were adults).

Bottom Line: Not quite in the upper echelon of Pixar’s output—which includes the likes of Up, Finding Nemo, Toy Story and Wall-E—Monsters University is nonetheless a worthy companion to the original and one of the summer’s most likeable and entertaining films.

World War Z (2013)

Directed by Marc Forster

Screenplay by Matthew Carnahan, Drew Goddard, and David Lindelof; Based on the novel by Max Brooks

Rated PG-13

Length: 116 minutes

Monsters University (2013)

Directed by Dan Scanlon

Written by Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson and Dan Scanlon

Rated G

Length: 110 minutes

MAN OF STEEL

Man of Steel (2013)

Grade: A-

Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer and Christopher Meloni

Premise: Sent to Earth for his safety on the eve of his home planet’s destruction, humanoid Kal-El discovers his true identity and the full scope of his powers just before an interstellar sociopath comes for him.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and destruction, disturbing images and some language

I didn’t grow up reading comic books or watching superhero cartoons, so I’ll admit I’ve rarely been struck with the awe and wonder most people experience as kids when they learn of the exploits of various men and women with superpowers, who selflessly devote their lives to stopping wrongs. Oh, I’ve fantasized about saving the day (or, more to the point, the Girl), beating up bullies, and being looked at as a hero, but it was always more in a gritty action hero sort of way. I never dreamed of sweeping in, invisible, indestructible, stopping villains and saving people while average citizens stood around gaping in awe. And being an adult who likes to nit-pick movies, the spectacle portrayed in the recent avalanche of superhero movies has rarely moved me with real awe.

I felt some of that awe, that there’s my hero, he’s coming to save the day again delight kids experience as I watched Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel today. Maybe it’s because I’d never seen a Superman movie before, and Superman is the quintessential noble, heroic, indestructible American superhero. I’ve sat through intense action movies and looked forward to seeing Batman, Spiderman and Iron Man stop the villain and save the day, but I’d never seen the last son of Krypton coming zipping in, weightless in the air, in the form-fitting blue suit and the flapping red cape, utterly determined and unstoppable, ready to administer his special brand of heroic, smack down justice on whatever baddies are threatening Earth’s populace. To me, a lifetime moviegoer, it’s the difference between cynically knowing the superhero is going to save the day because it’s his movie and that’s what he does because the script requires it because that’s what he does, and looking forward to the superhero saving the day, because you want him to because it’s gonna be awesome. I’m usually the former, Man of Steel got me to feel he latter. And I gotta tell ya: it’s a heck of a rush.

Most of the details of Superman’s story are common knowledge by now. Despite never having read a comic book or seen a previous Superman adaptation, I knew what to expect. Superman (born Kal-El) is the sole remaining member of a race of highly-advanced humanoids who lived on the distant planet Krypton. Kal-El’s parents, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Lara (Ayelet Zurer) more or less die watching their infant son’s emergency shuttlecraft take him deep into space, toward Earth, as their planet implodes around them. Kal-El soon lands on earth and is raised in Smallville, Kansas by a farmer, Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) and his wife, Martha (Diane Lane). Raised Clark Kent, Kal-El struggles to fit in mainly because he can’t open up to anyone—his parents embrace him as readily as a natural-born son, sure, but he’s super strong, has X-ray vision and has unnaturally heightened senses, and he can’t show it. He can’t fight back against bullies for fear of causing a hysteria with his strength. In fact, Clark’s father reprimands him for using his powers openly to save a school bus full of drowning children as a teen because it nearly blows his cover, but he encourages him to find out how he can best use his powers.

Which he eventually does. As a young man, Clark (Henry Cavill) discovers his true identity, realizes the full extent of his powers, wins the love and respect of a crusading reporter, Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and becomes Earth’s Mightiest Hero, saving the day again and again while disguising himself daily as a blah Daily Planet reporter named Clark Kent, who keeps everyone in the dark regarding his true identity by wearing thick-rimmed dork glasses on his handsome, chiseled face.

The great pleasure of Man of Steel is seeing all this unfold, and not necessarily in the way or order you think it will. The last days of Krypton at the beginning are beefed up, the young-Clark-trying-to-fit-in-with-Smallville, Kansas are cut down, Clark finds he can learn from and apply the advice of both of his father figures, and he tries to save the world. It needs saving, too, because a treacherous Kryptonian warlord, General Zod (Michael Shannon) has traveled across a great deal of space to try and use Clark’s super-powered D-N-A to recreate Krypton on Earth, which pretty much means leveling it and starting from scratch. Earth’s governing authorities must decide whether to trust Clark or not, whether to appease the threatening Zod by turning Clark over to him or not, and whether being protected by a Superman really is worth all this trouble or not.

 The star-studded cast is terrific. Henry Cavill’s Clark isn’t quite the animated, sharply-etched character say, Peter Parker is, but he’s a likeable presence, he’s humble, he’s got Super Awesome powers, and he looks like a studly superhero. In short: very easy to root for. Adams has proven she can play anything, and while Lois Lane steers close to being a straight-up damsel-in-distress role, the typically-excellent actress plays her with an edge of steel; she’s completely convincing as a no-nonsense reporter. Michael Shannon makes effective use of his unique bearing and voice to make General Zod a threatening, nasty figure without quite making him a frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic. Crowe exudes his usual quietly-heroic charisma in a beefed-up role as Jor-El, and Costner, Lane and Laurence Fishburne (as Lois Lane’s boss) all make solid impressions in limited screen time.  

What flaws Man of Steel has are typical to this type of movie: the climactic bad guy vs. good guy fight goes on forever, there’s a ruined-city-in-peril bit that is emotionally too close to 9/11 for comfort, slam-bang fights become tedious when it becomes clear none of the combatants get actually get hurt, and a mix of shaky cam filming, frenetic editing and overly-busy CGI render some scenes almost unwatchable. At two hours and twenty-three minutes, Man of Steel is long, but it doesn’t begin to feel long until fairly late in the proceedings.

But, of course, it does a lot of things right, first and foremost, as I mentioned, being that it makes you want your superhero to save the day. Better yet, it does so without you being able to predict, in advance, exactly how it’s going to happen (even if you can, watching it happen is still worth it). It deviates from a strictly-linear storytelling that avoids a by-the-numbers feel, as though a storyboard were pasted onto film—it also makes the flashbacks more interesting. Man of Steel also hits the heavy emotional chords when it needs to, the action is appropriately ominous and gasp-inducing, and there are some typically amusing moments watching unknowing shmucks in a bar trying to pick a fight with our indestructible hero.

I know what movie studios have always-and will always-struggle with regarding Superman—how can you make truly exciting, gripping movies about a guy who is literally indestructible, and, therefore, is rarely in any actual danger and will always save the day? I guess we’ll see. But for right now, let’s enjoy Man of Steel, a superhero movie done right.

Man of Steel (2013)

Directed by Zack Snyder

Screenplay by Jonathan S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan; Based on the Superman characters and stories created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Rated PG-13

Length: 143 minutes

HITCHCOCK

Hitchcock (2012)

Grade: B+

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Toni Collette, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Wincott, Jessica Biel and James D’Arcy

Premise: Alfred Hitchcock battles age, grudges and doubting studio bosses to finance and create Psycho, perhaps his best film.

Rated PG-13 for language, suggestive material and some dark themes

Well, Hitchcock came out in the wrong year. Starring Academy Award winners Anthony Hopkins (playing “Master of Suspense” Alfred Hitchcock under a fat suit and a ton of makeup) and Helen Mirren (as his wife, Alma Reville), this fact-based inside look at the making of one of the most famous Hollywood films of all time, 1960’s Psycho, was once considered clear Oscar bait. However, in hindsight, it might have had a better shot at Oscar glory one year prior, in 2011, when two of the year’s most revered films (Hugo and The Artist) reminisced magically about cinema’s early years and another respected film, My Week With Marilyn, told a similar true story about the making of a classic film with famous Hollywood names (also, if you ask me, 2011 had an overall fairly weak group of films competing for the Academy’s top honors, giving this film a better chance of squeezing into the top categories. Oh, I loved Hugo and The Artist, but other key nominations were snared by the very average Moneyball and Tree of Life and the critically-maligned Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close). Contrast that to this past year, when Hitchcock was released in November but all but disappeared amidst a swarm of quality films that were either too important (Lincoln, Life of Pi, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Les Miserables) or too irresistible (Django Unchained, Silver Linings Playbook) to bypass the Academy’s notice. 

Why is this relevant? Well, I would have seen Hitchcock a lot sooner if it had gotten more Oscar attention—and I always wondered why a film with such an obvious Oscar-ready pedigree dropped off the radar so entirely. But given the chance to see it, I took it, and I’m glad I did.

I admit I haven’t seen Psycho (of Hitchcock’s many famous films, I’ve only seen The Birds and North by Northwest), but I’ve heard of the infamous shower scene, of Janet Leigh’s deafening screams, of childlike psychopath Norman Bates’ creepy attachment to his Mother. I’ve also heard a lot about how Hitchcock played tricks on his audiences, egged them on, used 3-D and rocking theatre seats and other gags to entice audiences. This might sound a little lame or cheap in hindsight, but keep in mind about half a dozen of Hitchcock’s films are considered among the greatest ever made (other than the ones I mentioned, some of his other “Greatest Hits” include Vertigo, Rear Window and Strangers on a Train).

Anyway, Hitchcock opens with the glitz and glam of the director’s newest soon-to-be classic film, North by Northwest. A reporter asks the 60-year-old director (Hopkins) if his career might have peaked, if he should quit while he’s ahead. These questions haunt Hitchcock, who would be grumpy about being in-between projects even if he wasn’t being forced into a vegetables-only diet by his formidable wife/collaborator (Mirren). But when his receptionist (Toni Collette) gives him a copy of a new book, Robert Bloch’s “Psycho”, based on the real-life serial sociopathic habits of one Ed Gein (Michael Wincott), it sets Hitchcock’s world on fire. It’s grisly, it’s shocking, it’s stunning, it’s like stuff you’ve never seen, and Hitchcock wants in, claiming he can prove there’s a killer in all of us. But his studio won’t finance it, the censorship board is appalled at the contents of the script Hitch gets produced by a squirrelly scribe (Ralph Macchio), and even Alma thinks Hitch might better served adapting a more typical suspense script by her charming friend Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), who has worked with Hitch before.

Refusing to back down, Hitchcock says he’ll finance the movie himself, he charms some popular actors (James D’Arcy’s Anthony Perkins, Scarlett Johansson’s comely Janet Leigh, even one-time It-Girl Vera Miles, played by Jessica Biel) into playing his parts, and he gets to work. But the movie’s budget starts increasing by the day, the censorship board refuses to give Psycho a seal of approval, the neglected Alma is spending more and more time helping Whitfield edit a script at an isolated cabin on the beach, and people on the set start muttering that Hitch is off his rocker. Which he just might be, seeing as he’s internalized Psycho’s grisly contents to such a degree that he sees Ed Gein everywhere, even in his house.

The rest, as they say, is history. Psycho becomes a huge success, and the film ends with a clever visual pun referencing Hitch’s inspiration for his next big project (I won’t spoil what that is, in case you don’t already know).

For a historical biopic, Hitchcock is a surprisingly breezy watch. Though I’m a huge movie fan, I admittedly haven’t seen or studied much Hitchcock, so I learned a lot about his life and his films. And despite being about a real subject in Hollywood’s history, Hitchcock lacks the over-indulgent feel, and inflated running time, of most important Hollywood self-stories (in fact, the 98-minute Hitchcock is one of those rare movies I wouldn’t have minded going a few scenes longer).

Part of the reason it feels that way is likely because the movie spends as much running time focusing on the clash of wills, jealousy, neglect and stubbornness surrounding Hitch and Alma as it does the making of the movie. Alma knows she can’t quench Hitch’s thirst for younger, blonder, curvier women, and Hitch, for his part, comes to realize he can’t be perfect even if he wants to be, and he needs Alma’s steady hand to guide his megalomania. It might be conventional stuff, but it’s brought to vivid enough life that a late confession of Hitchcock’s that Alma is “the ultimate Hitchcock blonde” is supremely touching and gratifying.

Hopkins and Mirren are superb in these roles. While the undeniably huge amount of makeup used to make Hopkins greater resemble the portly, double-chinned Hitchcock is a tiny bit distracting, it nonetheless completely hides Hopkins, freeing the great actor from having to try and give a performance that doesn’t at all remind one of Hannibal Lecter. Thus, with a made-over physique, the actor’s powerful, expressive voice takes center stage, and it headlines a strong performance. Mirren, meanwhile, just adds another great performance to her already considerable repertoire. Her Alma is the warm beating heart of the film, and the scene where she gives the brash, proud, neglectful Hitchcock what-for might be the film’s best. Watching this, I’m devastated that she missed out on an Oscar nomination to a 9-year old (Quveznhane Wallis) and a here-today, gone-next-scene Naomi Watts (who all but disappeared from the second half of her disaster drama, The Impossible).

If you’re a Hitchcock fan, this film might send you to paradise. If you’re a cinema fan, it’s close. If you just like movies, you’ll surely find something to get excited about in this touching, funny, educational and revealing look at the making of classic.

Hitchcock (2012)

Directed by Sacha Gervasi

Screenplay by John J. McLaughlin; Based on the book “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” by Stephen Rebello

Rated PG-13

Length: 98 minutes

AFTER EARTH

After Earth (2013)

Grade: B-

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Jaden Smith, Will Smith, Sophie Okonedo and Zoe Kravitz

Premise: A famous war hero’s son must prove himself to his father after their spaceship crashes on an abandoned, deadly planet

Rated PG-13 for intense action and gory images, intense emotional content and some scary moments

As I was walking out of After Earth, the new post-apocalyptic dramatic thriller starring Will Smith and his 14-year-old son, Jaden, the two friends with whom I saw the movie uttered a pair of quotes that perfectly encapsulate what I’m feeling in the aftermath of seeing it. “Oblivion was better,” one said. “He (Smith) did it for his son,” said the other. Believe it or not, that’s all you need to know about After Earth.

For the former, remember that Oblivion was another post-apocalyptic thriller set on an abandoned Earth—released in the middle of last month starring Tom Cruise, it delivered on a spiffy-looking trailer with dazzling visuals, electrifying action sequences, a rollercoaster storyline, and a throwback, this-is-why-I’m-a-star performance by Cruise. That two-hour-and-twenty-minute film, while more sophisticated than your average action-Jackson summer popcorn flick, was nonetheless a whopping, unforgettable piece of entertainment. It certainly had a more vivid and lasting impact than After Earth will.

*NOTE: For various reasons, I never wrote an official review of Oblivion, but I would have given it a B verging on a B+ for its acting, visuals, slight brain teasing plot elements and its better-than-just- straightforward storyline*

Secondly, After Earth boasts one of the most recognizable and reliable entertainers of the past two-and- a-half decades in Will Smith (who originally conceived the story), but it then watches as Smith takes an unquestioned backseat to his son, who previously starred with his father in 2006’s famously emotional true story drama, The Pursuit of Happyness. This passing-the-torch gesture probably went over very well in the Smith household, but it might not go ever well with audiences, watching the endlessly appealing and charismatic older Smith relegated to a droning bobble head literally watching from the sidelines in a 100-minute two-character film.

The story’s pretty basic. After fires, wars, pollution and various other human misdeeds rendered Earth uninhabitable, the human race was forced to leave and look for another home. They did so, led by a special breed of highly-trained, no-nonsense warriors called Rangers. However, when humanity’s new desert planet home world turned out to be infested with aliens who preyed (literally) on human fear, the need for a special, Ender-Wiggin-like leader who could defy the odds and save humanity arose. Enter Cypher Raige (Will Smith), a man of strength, courage, laser-like focus and the ability to drain himself of all fear, making him invisible to the aliens. Years later, the new home world is secure, but the Raige household is in turmoil—the celebrated Cypher simply has more important things to do then raise his son, Kitai (Jaden Smith), leaving the boy feeling angry and inadequate and wondering if his father blames him for the horrific death of his older sister (Zoe Kravitz) years before. The boy is crushed when he flunks out of Ranger training, believing he now has nothing with which to please or impress his father, but, with some convincing from Kitai’s mother (Sophie Okonedo), Cypher brings his son along on a deep-space mission.

Whatever the mission was, it doesn’t happen. Damaged in an asteroid storm, the Raige’s spaceship breaks apart and crash lands on earth, killing all but the father and the son.  The cockpit, in which Kitai and Cypher remained during the plunge to earth, is damaged and nearly faulty, but there is an emergency beacon in the tail section of the ship, which ended up some 100 kilometers away. With Cypher immobilized by devastating leg injuries, it’s up to Kitai to retrieve the beacon. But Earth is no longer a very happy place for humans—the oxygen level in the air has dangerously decreased, the weather fluctuates randomly, and pretty much every living thing would love Kitai for dinner. But with his father’s meticulous, level-headed radio guidance, the boy might just have a chance, even if he can’t manage to imitate his father and rid himself of fear.

Yep, all that was in the trailer, and that’s about all there is to it. Oh, and you might have heard, but one-time suspense-film wunderkind M. Night Shyamalan directs. I had forgotten the man behind a pair of the last three decades’ most inspired and original suspense/horror flicks (The Sixth Sense and Signs)—as well as some of the same time period’s most laughably awful movies (The Village, Lady in the Water, The Last Airbender)—was helming this, but serious movie people need not worry: the director hasn’t drenched this film in his usual quasi-mysterious randomness. After Earth actually looks great, and contains some exhilarating moments and intense action sequences (a standout is a scene in which the son panics after inhaling a paralyzing toxin, and struggles to comply with his father’s direct orders on how to self-administer an antidote while his face swells and his body goes limp); for a surprisingly-short would-be epic blockbuster, it does at least lack the air of carelessness and hollowness of shoddy sci-fi adventures like last year’s Lockout.

Despite its surface quality, though, After Earth lacks any real spark. Jaden’s a nimble actor able to convincingly convey emotion, but we’re here to see his father, one of the most accomplished movie stars of the last 20 years, and Will’s grumbling automaton is a huge disappointment, and, even before the movie's over, proves to be possibly his least-memorable performance ever. Now, it’s true Smith-the-elder has nothing to prove to anyone, but at least Oblivion was headlined by a big name (Cruise) who delivered one of his best performances in years. Also unlike Oblivion, After Earth suffers in that there’s absolutely nothing here not in the trailer. No surprises, no twists, no extra characters—nothing. It’s more than a tad monotonous.

Ultimately underwhelming, After Earth left me very curious, and my friend’s “(Smith) did it for his son” quote answered a lot of my questions. Naturally, a father who loves his son and sees him with a future in show business came up with an idea that could be his son’s first big starring vehicle, and even consented to step aside and let his son take center stage.  The movie's well made, but there’s nothing else to it, and for a movie whose trailer seemed to promise Avatar-level grand adventure, that’s a letdown.

After Earth (2013)

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Screenplay by M. Night Shyamalan and Gary Whitta; based on a story by Will Smith

Rated PG-13

Length: 100 minutes