Defending Your Movie: After Earth

Overall, critics tend to get things right. But sometimes, they just destroy a movie that really doesn’t deserve any of that hate. So it was with After Earth, M. Night Shyamalan’s sci-fi adventure which opened to abysmal reviews and got steam-rolled at the box office by Now You See Me of all things. What started out as a normal essay has evolved into a list of seven reasons the film is good. Please feel free to skim the points: I didn’t mean for it to only be read word for word (hence its absurd length).
This article is spoiler-free (save for point number 6), but in order to understand it, one should be somewhat aware of the movie’s premise. Here it is:
In the far future, Earth has been abandoned and humans have moved to a new planet. Genetically-engineered alien creatures known as the Ursa were sent to try and wipe the humans out: The creatures are able to sense one’s fear and hunt without mercy. Cypher Raige is a decorated general who is able to “ghost,” or be so completely without fear that Ursa can’t see him. However, his distant demeanor, strict parenting, and grief over the loss of his daughter prevents him from connecting with his talented-yet-impulsive son, Kitai. Cypher agrees to take Kitai with him on a low-risk mission prior to his retirement, but their ship breaks in two and the father and son land on a deserted and dangerous planet: Earth. With both of Cypher’s legs snapped like twigs, Kitai must journey alone across several miles of dangerous terrain in order to reach the tail end of the ship and send a distress beacon. Cypher’s only means of aiding his son is through advice relayed with a high-tech walkie-talkie. To make matters worse, an Ursa is around as well.

1. After Earth is suspenseful and well-paced. The majority of the blockbuster movies in theatres, such as Star Trek into Darkness or Fast & Furious 6, are lightning-fast paced. They open up with a wild action sequence, have a few scenes to show the characters, and then have the rest of the story and interactions take place in the midst of one nail-biting scenario after another. This is a fine way to tell a story, but by no means is it the only way. In fact, in many ways it is inferior.
After Earth spends roughly thirty minutes just getting to the point where the ship crashes. We see Kitai’s skills and flaws so his impulsiveness and proficiency in combat don’t seem out of place when they come up later. We see the great respect people show to Cypher and from this pick up on what a revered leader he is.
When the action starts, it isn’t just one chase scene after another, either. There are long places where nothing happens, and we just see Kitai trudging through the gorgeous jungle. The sense of danger increases exponentially the longer we wait. Furthermore, we (the audience) get a sense of how impossible this journey is in that it feels like it actually takes a long time.

2. The challenges Kitai faces aren’t just various monsters to fight. After Earth is a survival tale. It doesn’t lazily thrust viewers from one fight scene to another. Over the course of the movie, Kitai has to do things like inject himself with anti-venom after getting bitten by a leech-thing despite being temporarily blinded, avoid predators instead of shooting them (since he doesn’t have a gun), and get through dangerous temperature shifts. One particularly gripping sequence has a gravely ill Kitai forced to spend a few hours completely paralyzed in the middle of a dangerous jungle as he waits for the medicine to kick in.

3. The characters are unique and likeable. Kitai is a moody teenager and Cypher is a strict military general. Seems like stock characters. Fortunately, they actually seem quite human.
Kitai isn’t perfect--we see his impulsiveness and his intense rage at his father--but he doesn’t do it by being sulky and making snide comments. He acts like a real soldier, answering everything with a sir; at the same time, though, he often does something reckless and stupid (such as not telling his father how much oxygen he has in his fuel tanks). Similarly, Cypher doesn’t storm around bellowing orders; he gives commands quietly and controlled, though Will Smith clearly conveys Cypher’s distant personality and all the pain and shame he feels over the death of his daughter.

4. The movie looks gorgeous...and real. With cinematographer Peter Suschitsky (A History of Violence), Shyamalan crafts a picture with a gorgeous color palette full of lush greens and blues. The beauty stands out in every frame and Shyamalan takes full advantage of it, using his trademark wide, distant shots. What is more, though, is everything looks natural. The trees and moss and sky and snow doesn’t look like something from Pandora or Oz: It is something you could see in your local forest preserve. I have no idea how much is digital and how much is real, but it looks like something from a Disney Nature film, not anything I’ve witnessed in blockbuster action films of recent years.

5. The film plays like a monster movie, and is all the better for it. There is a reason that the image above isn’t a still from After Earth, but one from the 80s sci-fi classic Predator. After Earth is the modern day equivalent to that film. Hear me out.
Most blockbuster movies tend to throw one enemy after another at the hero; the hero takes them on one at a time and then moves on to the next. Like a video game. In The Hobbit, Bilbo goes around Middle Earth like it is a Devil May Cry episode and fights one new beast or challenge after another in order to reach his final goal. Now don’t get me wrong--The Hobbit is a very good movie. I’m using it as an example precisely because it is so good. Bad films aren’t the only ones guilty of this. All the monsters and visual effects blockbusters throw at us are cool, but none of them seem particularly intimidating because they are clearly just stepping stones to get to the big boss.
In a monster movie, there aren’t a million different creatures after the protagonist: There is one. But the hero is more vulnerable than in a movie like The Hobbit and the monster is more deadly. Everything is a game of cat and mouse and the beast is the central attraction. It is what symbolizes the theme of the story. In Predator (one of the best monster movies ever made), Predator is the perfect representation of the two most basic (but opposing) human traits: Savagery and honor. In Cloverfield, the Cloverfield monster represents the thought that all of a sudden the world as we know it could completely be transformed by some awful disaster (read: 9/11). In After Earth, the monster--known as the Ursa--represents the crippling power of fear.
Shyamalan has gotten a lot of criticism for his lazy creature design on the Ursa, but I think those people who are attacking it are missing the point. The Ursa isn’t supposed to impress us while it is on screen, it is supposed to impress us while it isn’t. It is constantly on Kitai’s trail, an ever-present threat, but it doesn’t just attack all at once. Because that isn’t what fear is like. Fear is something that can follow us for days, waiting until we are at our lowest point to strike.

6. There is one truly powerful scene that is impossible not to touch you. This entry contains a bit of a spoiler.
Throughout the first half of the movie, Kitai is in constant contact with Cypher, who is able to see what Kitai sees through a camera on Kitai’s suit and converse with Kitai on a walkie-talkie. However, after Kitai semi-crash lands into an eagle’s nest, the camera and radio are destroyed and Cypher loses contact. When Kitai eventually reaches the remains of the ship, he is able to turn on a skype-like machine. But due to the fact that the ship crash-landed next to a volcano, Cypher can’t send a message back. Don’t say this is implausible: It isn’t. How many times have you been able to hear what someone is saying to you on their cell phone when you can’t communicate back?
Cypher is sitting in the spaceship, unable to walk, watching his son sobbing into the camera thinking that no one can hear him. At the same time, Cypher can tell on his radar that the Ursa is swiftly closing in on Kitai’s location. Cypher sees everything, and is saying commands to his son, but there is no way that Kitai can hear it.
It is a perfect metaphor for parenthood. Parents teach their kids the skills to succeed. They can see what the kids should do. But in the end, they don’t have any real way to get that information to them--They just have to trust that their children know how to implement the skills they teach.

7. All of the above points tie into a greater theme. We all know that panicking is bad. Giving into fear will accomplish nothing. But it is so freaking hard.
After Earth personifies this. Kitai is facing a foe that he knows cannot hurt him if he isn’t afraid of it. But it doesn’t matter what Kitai knows--He feels fear, and this makes him vulnerable.
After Earth shows us this paradox, and it makes us feel the sense of danger. But it also reassures us that when we finally ignore our feelings completely--when we just let all those feelings wash over us--we can’t be harmed.
And, most importantly, it does all this while being entertaining. Because it is really hard to be touched by a movie that bores you.

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So there you go. Seven reasons this is actually a fantastic film that is completely undeserving of its low reviews and poor box office performance. I hope that one day, like Predator (which was torn apart by critics on its release, though was later accepted by them), this movie will one day get the respect it deserves.

Mud (A+)

Always believable while tackling major issues, riveting without being showy, and deeply moving without being dull to watch, Mud is one of those rare films that is truly great.

Ellis

Ellis is a boy living in the swampy, bayou-y part of Arkansas that most people call the Louisiana Bayou (though technically, he isn’t in Louisiana). He lives with his parents alongside a river in a rural area. The movie doesn’t pound in the ideas of poverty, but it is clear that he is living a very low-class life. His father is a fisherman, but with his parents planning a divorce his father will have to lose his dock because it is owned by his mother. Chances are Ellis will end up moving to a more urban environment. This might actually be a better change for Ellis in the long-term, but it also means everything about his life is going to be upended in a way no one is happy about.
While all this is happening, Ellis and his friend slip away to visit one of the many small, deserted islands that surround his home. There they find Mud. Mud is a fugitive from both the police and a group of vicious gangsters. Mud is resourceful and charismatic, but it is clear that not everything is there. Not that he is dumb (in fact, he is quite the opposite) or delusional: But he is certainly missing something mentally. However, beneath his vaguely menacing--and rivetting--outside is a dreamer, a man who despite having done so much to screw up his own life and having a future that looks anything but bright still clings on to various superstitions, old wives tales, and stories that he has told himself so many times he believes are true.

Tye Sheridan, the young star of The Tree of Life, plays Ellis. Ellis isn’t as showy a role as that of Mud, but with the help of flawless editing Sheridan carries the movie by being able to show a number of feelings without saying a word. The supporting cast is all good as well: Jacob Lofland and Bonnie Sturdivant make great debuts as Ellis’s friends, Michael Shannon shines in a small role as Ellis's friend's foster father, and Sam Shepard is riveting as Ellis’s tough-as-nails veteran neighbor. Ray McKinnon is particularly good as Ellis’s flawed but loving father. Even Reese Witherspoon manages not to mess up her sizable role as a childhood friend and sometime lover of Mud.
Of course, the main attraction here is Mud, and the movie lives or dies on that performance. Fortunately, the role went to Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey knows not to try and ham up the performance too much, but his charisma is still always there in every scene. It is probably his best performance yet, which is saying alot considering that mixed in with his work in not-very-good romantic comedies are some pretty great performances in some pretty great films.

All of the acting would be wasted if it weren’t for the story, and fortunately writer/director Jeff Nichols is a master storyteller. Nichols, who previously made Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter, has long showed up on lists of directors to watch, and here he really shows his potential. With his unobtrusive camera work and flawless editing, Nichols makes sure to have a slow, deliberate pace that leaves ample opportunity to show every side to Ellis and Mud and their various relationships. All the time, though, there is a very clear sense that there is a point to this story and not once is the movie dull. The story is always entertaining and climaxes in a pulse-pounding shootout, but it never drifts into action/thriller territory: Everything feels oh-so-real. At no time does Nichols try and bring the story into surreal territory: There is not going to be a magical solution for Ellis’s problems and it is clear that Mud is often living a fantasy. However, Nichols does tackle such big issues as faith and hope while coming up with a satisfying ending.
In the end, it is a tale about optimism. Ellis and Mud’s futures are as muddy as the waters they live in and many of their hopes are clearly unrealistic; however, this doesn’t mean they have to (or should) stop living a life where numerous possibilities and wonders--and possibly even some sort of higher power watching over everything--are still always there.
This film is always genuine and never showy but is also deeply powerful.