by DANIELLE MIZRAHI Staff Writer
Will Smith stars in yet another movie, but this time there seems to be too much Smith with the addition of his son Jaden.
“Fear is very real, danger is a choice,” is stated by one of the main characters, Cypher, played by Will Smith, and is the theme of the entire movie.
When Earth is taken over by aliens and evolved animals whose mission is to kill humans, all humans are evacuated to Nova Prime, the new home in space. Cypher is the general and in charge of their military.
The problem starts when Cypher takes his son Kitai, played by Jaden Smith, with him on a trip. The spaceship gets caught in an asteroid shower and crash lands on Earth. The crash leaves all crew dead and Cypher with a badly broken leg. Of course that means Kitai is the only way to get back to Nova Prime.
That leads to the obvious question: Is Kitai able to save himself and his father in time or will they die in the abandoned planet? Wow, what a plot (cue sarcasm).
“The movie was not well written. The concept was okay, but it was not carried out well at all. It seemed like it would be an action-packed movie, but it was not,” said freshmen Kassidy Utheim.
Not only was the plot cliche and a typical storyline, the acting was not as one would hope.
Will Smith is known for his acting in the T.V. show “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and movies like the “Men in Black” series, “Seven Pounds”, and ” I am Legend”. He had lack of emotion and did not act nearly as well compared to his previous movies. His laid back aproach in this movie tried to focus the attention on Jaden, which it did, but in a negative way.
“Will Smith is usually very funny, and I love him, but he was too serious. At times, he should have been more emotional instead of being serious. Jaden Smith was not a very good actor. I liked him in other movies, but he did not play well in this role,” said Utheim.
Jaden Smith also lacked emotion the whole time. He only seemed to show sadness and cry, but not in a way that would ignite sympathy. Instead, people were sitting and laughing. Compared to “The Karate Kid,” this movie did not help the young star advance his career.
“My least favorite part was the rest of the movie besides when Kitai was fighting the monster thing because basically nothing happened for the majority of the movie. I was bored while watching it other than while I was eating popcorn,” said freshmen Joely Phenes.
The film was predicted to be a huge hit in the box office, but crashed with only $27 million when it cost $135 million to produce.
“The reason for it being so horrible is one simply reason – it was boring,” said Phenes.
The film was a let down. I give it a three out of 10 stars because the storyline was there, but not presented well, and the horrible acting made the movie unenjoyable.
What did you think of “After Earth”?