Jaden Smith

The advertising campaign for the film After Earth has completely omitted the name of its director, M. Night Shymalan. That’s unusual, because a director who’s had a couple of recent bombs isn’t that big a problem. Anybody can come back from a slump, and many directors have. More intrinsic problems such as a bad script, are much more likely to doom a movie, and they nearly do for After Earth.

A crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.