I’m pretty slow on the uptake this summer with a ton of movies I still need to see, and one of them is M. Night Shyamalan’s “After Earth.” What’s that, you say? You didn’t know this was an M. Night joint? You’d be forgiven for missing that nugget, since advertising for the film has curiously kept his name low key if not outright out of the picture (it’s nowhere to be found above the title on the poster and the trailers certainly didn’t play it up). As for why, I’ll leave that to you to decide.
The film, like clockwork, is taking a critical beating. But it has a few forgivers, like our own Drew McWeeny, noting that it was “lovely to see something that is sincere, thematically focused, and that ultimately works in a way I didn’t expect.” Then again, maybe it’s just a Scientology indoctrination film. I’ll see for myself eventually, but it would appear Shyamalan is a filmmaker with a lot of ground to cover if he’s going to be back where he was a decade ago. For now, though, if you’ve seen the film (which stars Will Smith and son Jaden) or if you get around to it this weekend, head on back here with your thoughts and feel free to vote in the poll below.