Two For Tuesday: After Earth / Oblivion

Sci-Fi Supermarkets and The Pursuit of Apathy

In true Hollywood fashion, a duo of films have been recently released that share an overall theme.  Where before there was Armageddon and Deep Impact, Dante's Peak and Volcano, Antz and A Bug's Life, we now have After Earth and Oblivion.  Unfortunately for us Earth-dwelling humans, the theme is the collapse of human civilisation and the Earth becoming inhospitable.  Even more unfortunate, Hollywood has chosen Tom Cruise and Jaden (son of Will) Smith to star in these post-apocalyptic futures.

We get it;
Ruined Earth = Big,  One Man = Small

So since they share a common theme, they are bound to share other features and they ultimately do.  Both of these films feature an annoying lead character travel on an annoyingly boring quest, whilst an underutilised and more competent secondary character sits in a control room for most of the film's duration, culminating in a disappointing conclusion stolen from another film entirely.  Let's analyse, shall we?

Oblivion takes place years after an alien invasion of Earth, which humans 'won' by deploying nuclear weapons that leave the planet inhospitable.  One of the only people left is Tom Cruise, a security drone repairman who lives with fellow technician Andrea Riseborough.  The drones they repair keep huge Earth-restoring machines safe from pesky sabotaging aliens that keep Tom on his toes. But he keeps getting distracted of visions of a woman he feels like he once knew. Until he conveniently finds a mysterious pod with the woman inside! Plots slowly unravel and Morgan Freeman appears out of nowhere to tell Tom that not everything is as it seems.

And so the Giant Tom Cruise watched
over his sea vacuums patiently...

Sounds promising, yeah? The film truly begins to slide downhill after the discovery of the mystery woman and the conspiracy surrounding Earth's true history. Despite the film trying to pay homage to the science-fiction films of the 1960s and 70s, such as Logan's Run, it never reaches those dystopian goals, falling down on the weak plot, foreseeable narrative twists and sloppy character development.

I wanted to like Cruise in this, as he seemed to fit the character well, but ultimately the story becomes boring and predictable. There is a sleek, intriguing opening act, but the rest of the film fails to deliver on a promising premise, stealing so many references from other science-fiction films. It's almost like the director Joseph Kinsinski simply sat down, watched classic sci-fi films and went “That. I want all of that.” A proverbial sci-fi supermarket for him to pick and choose without having to come up with anything original.

You can plagarise Moon all you like,

but no-one rips off Wall-E 

Speaking of unoriginal directors, shall we move on to M. Night Shyamalan's newest venture? After Earth also holds a rather intriguing plot, with a half-hearted, disappointing payoff. It's a long explanation so bear with me.

This is the face
of a fearless monster killer

In the future, Earth, again, becomes inhospitable due to our extended interference with the atmosphere.  This is twinned with all of the Earth's animal kingdom beginning to evolve into human killers.  So we humans all scarper off to another habitable planet, only to find it populated by other human-killing monsters. Humans can not catch a break in the future. These monsters are also perfect at hunting us... except that they don't have eyes.  Don't know why but instead they sense our fear.  And excitement.  And happiness.  Like any feeling, they can sense it.  Again in true Shyamalan fashion, it's never explained how they do this; they just do.  So, in order to avoid and kill them, a human must not feel fear, and Will Smith is the most cold-hearted SOB in the fleet.

Will and his son, Jaden, go off on a space flight with one of these monsters, for some silly reason, and the ship crashes onto the dreaded inhospitable Earth! Will breaks both of his legs in the crash but healthy Jaden has to retrieve the emergency beacon from another part of the jungle in which they find themselves. He has to evade evil baboons, oversized condors and a dreaded pack of ligers (that's the offspring of a lion and a tiger) and learn to tame his fear to overcome the escaped alien beasty that inexplicably escapes.

Evil, evil monkey...

Let's start off with the obvious stuff. Will Smith should not do a role that is this serious and boring. Neither should his son. They both are so badly-cast, I felt angry at their obvious vanity in casting themselves when other actors would have been better suited for the roles. Actors such as Josh Brolin, Kiefer Sutherland and Idris Elba have made careers playing serious and stoic roles such as this, and could have provided more gravity and intensity that the character needed. I couldn't help look at the poe-faced father and son, and just see a very moody Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Karate Kid.

Also the film came across as simply a Smith-production, and I had an instant dislike to Jaden Smith and the character he portrays, merely due to the fact I know both he and the character got their jobs because of who his father is. It really put me off his character, failing from the start to create an emotional bond with him.  It seemed that the Smiths hadn't gotten enough audience attention from The Pursuit of Happyness, and so felt like making The Pursuit of Apathy instead.

This is what the Smiths should stick to

Technically-speaking, for a movie with this much budget and filmed on so much green screen, the effects looked pretty poor from today's standards.  The threatening Earth animals and interstellar nasties equally looked fake and unrealistic, leaving you with little concern for little Jaden's well-being. The main peril in the film comes from these animal encounters and since I had little care for Jaden's character from the start, the tense chase sequences and animal attacks didn't react with me at all. I wouldn't have cared if he bit the bullet, giving someone more deserving a chance to go to space. Selfish Jaden Smith.

Whilst I had no high hopes for either film, I was still left with a sense of disappointment after watching them both. Oblivion's opening act lifted my expectations, only to dash them in the end, as did the appointment of M. Night Shyamalan's position as After Earth's director. I always go into a film of Night's, hoping he can rekindle the respect I held for him before the débâcle that was The Happening. But he continues plunging ever further away from ever gaining the respect that was awarded him after the release of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable.

But should I keep holding on hope for that one next film that Mr M. Night or Mr Cruise could potentially make next?  They could become another Eddie Murphy or Mike Myers, slowly slinking away, occasionally bringing the public some pale imitation of what they once were. Or they could possibly follow in the footsteps of Matthew McConaughey; slowly rebuilding credibility, film by film, until they find themselves working on a Christopher Nolan science-fiction film.  Surely the sky (and beyond) is the limit.

Oblivion : 5/10
After Earth : 3/10