This movie review appeared in the online magazine Rule of Thumb on June 4, 2013.
OK, I’ll admit it. I’m that annoying person you go to the movies with – not the one who talks through the whole thing or whose cell phone rings. I’m the one who always knows the plot before it happens.
Last night I went to the drive-in. (Yes, we still have a drive-in, and it’s a thriving business in our Vermont summers.) What I like about the drive-in, among other things, is that it offers you the chance to see a double feature (for those of you who weren’t teenagers in the 1950s’ height of drive-in popularity, that’s “two movies in a row, Dawg.”)
Sometimes it happens that the two movies you want to see fall in the same time slot, and so last night instead of watching Iron Man 3 as I’d hoped (perfect drive-in fodder, by the way), my friend and I watched M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth. Yeah, I said M. Night Shyamalan. Are you as surprised as we were that he’s even affiliated with the film? It’s probably because all of the billing has been about Will Smith and his son Jaden who feature in the film, with nary a mention of this famous director.
It’s almost as if Shyamalan’s not a part of the family. (Mostly because he isn’t.) To be sure, this film is a family affair. Smith wrote the screenplay. His wife Jada produced. And his son starred.
Full disclosure: Will Smith is one of my favorite celebrities. For someone who doesn’t have cable or read celebrity magazines, I know a lot about (and deeply respect) Will Smith and his family: Will’s rap is clean but sincere (remember his rap?); he is extremely intelligent (though the rumor about him turning down a scholarship to MIT to follow his dream is, apparently, false) and he is deeply committed to family. (I read once that he and Jada have a pledge to get up for the other in the middle of the night to help with creative projects.)
But that commitment to family is, as I see it, exactly the problem with this film. First, to return to my original point, the plot was extremely predictable – to the extent that it’s not even worth citing details. I’ve seen that movie so many times (and I am not a huge watcher of science fiction) that I timed my bathroom break so I wouldn’t have to live through the anxiety of the build up to the climax – a scene where the big bad alien would chase down a young boy who would have to face his foe single-handedly, all alone, and with no fear. Sound familiar? Yeah, you’ve seen that movie a thousand times too, right?
So the real question for me is: Why would the intelligent, successful Will Smith create such predictable, cliche garbage? It seems clear to me this was a venue for him, in his love of family, to put his son first. (To the point that Will’s character was physically debilitated in the film, forcing Jaden – literally – into action.) This film was about ensuring the future success of Jaden Smith, pure and simple. Any dad would do it, and many Hollywood dads have done it before.
I don’t begrudge Will that, but I do begrudge him the artistic quality of the film. He is capable of so much more, and this film was a plot flop.
Which brings me back to M. Night Shyamalan. I can count on one hand (which is also cliche) the number of movies that have had me in absolute awe because I was surprised at the outcome: The Village and The Sixth Sense. Right. Both M. Night Shyamalan films. Now, look, I’m no great cinephile. I don’t follow the careers of stars or directors or have an RSS feed to IMDb. I just appreciate good art when I see it. And those were good films. The Village was billed as a horror film, but was a deep, thoughtful sociological analysis on the futility of utopias. And when the secret of The Sixth Sense was revealed, (no spoilers) I am sure I let out a gasp of some kind. Because not knowing the plot twist 15 minutes into a film or 25 pages into a book so rarely happens to me. But Shyamalan’s done it twice. And then he directed this plot flop, this cliche, this son launcher. Boo.
The plot situation was not made any better with the second film (remember the double feature?): Star Trek: Into Darkness. Twenty minutes into it, I could see where we were headed, I knew the plot twist, and I foretold the resolution. (Honest, ask my friend who, thank-you-very-much, I did have the courtesy to ask if he wanted to know what was going to happen.) No, I am not one of those “trekkies” who follows the series and the movies and who can speak in Klingon. I am just saying it was poor, predictable plotting.
So, what is the solution to this dilemma for American cinema? (Because I’ll admit I’ve turned to foreign films to get my fix of plot complexity, dynamic characters, and a world that, much like the one we actually live in, protagonists actually die and fail.)
I don’t think I am going to fix the over-romanticism of Hollywood, because, let’s face it, it sells. But I am saying I would like to enjoy a complex film with dynamic plot twists and characters. I believe M. Night Shyamalan and Will Smith, and, at times, even Star Trek, have proven themselves capable of that kind of art, and I hope to see more of that ilk in the future, versus the schmaltzy nepostism of After Earth or the blatant predictability of Star Trek: Into Darkness.
Do you think Hollywood will listen to a lowly English teacher/writer from Vermont? Doubtful. I have hopes for the American film industry, but where will it head in the future? I cannot predict.
Annalisa Parent is a teacher and freelance writer living in Vermont.
This is a recent article from Esquire where Smith admits that After Earth is a flop. Interesting!
The ‘Focus’ actor opened up about the highs and lows of his career and son Jaden Smith in a recent interview with Esquire.
Over the span of Will Smith’s 25-year career, there’s one film in particular that has taught the actor a “valuable lesson.”
In a recent interview with Esquire [2], Smith revealed that when 2013’s sci-fi film After Earth [3], in which he starred alongside son Jaden Smith, bombed at the box office (grossing a total of $60.5 million domestically), he realized he had been seeking success in all of the wrong places.
“That was the most painful failure in my career. Wild Wild West was less painful than After Earth because my son was involved in After Earth and I led him into it. That was excruciating,” Smith admitted. “What I learned from that failure is how you win. I got reinvigorated after the failure of After Earth. I stopped working for a year and a half. I had to dive into why it was so important for me to have number-one movies. And I never would have looked at myself in that way.”
But upon hearing the news that the father-son project he’d worked so hard for had unexpectedly tanked, Smith only had about half an hour to let it all sink in.
“I get the box-office numbers on Monday and I was devastated for about twenty-four minutes, and then my phone rang and I found out my father had cancer. That put it in perspective —viciously,” he recalled.
As a young teen, it was a failed relationship that sparked the actor’s desire to be the best, which later translated to box-office domination. “I was a guy who, when I was fifteen my girlfriend cheated on me, and I decided that if I was number one, no woman would ever cheat on me,” he said. “All I have to do is make sure that no one’s ever better than me and I’ll have the love that my heart yearns for.”
Smith added, “That Monday [following the opening weekend of After Earth] started the new phase of my life, a new concept: Only love is going to fill that hole. You can’t win enough, you can’t have enough money, you can’t succeed enough. There is not enough. The only thing that will ever satiate that existential thirst is love. And I just remember that day I made the shift from wanting to be a winner to wanting to have the most powerful, deep, and beautiful relationships I could possibly have.”
I respect your thoughts on Star Trek: Into Darkness, but I don’t understand how you did not find some surprises in that film. Let how there are Khan’s people in the torpedoes and how the Admiral Marcus was one of the antagonists, ready to kill so many people in order to keep him in ‘the chair.’ Honestly, I cannot say anything regarding several of the other films you mentioned in your writing, but I can definitely relate to your thoughts on movies being too predictable in their plots.
Sincerely,
the Trekkie who cannot speak Klingon (sadly)
This is extremely interesting. Like yourself, I’m no film connoisseur, but I do enjoy good movies. I’ve never seen this movie so I wouldn’t know much about what you wrote about. However, I understand where you’re coming from with the whole plot thing. Everything is so predictable these days. Now, I’m definitely not as good at figuring out the plot twists and everything as you are, but if you want something that might stump you, I would definitely recommend the film Now You See Me. After watching it, I realized I never would have been able to guess what happens. It’s also quite a creative movie. Aside from all that, this is a well written review and I understood it despite not knowing about who or what you were referring to.
Thanks for the thoughtful review, Chani. I will definitely check out your film recommendation!
At first glance, I wasn’t even sure what the title of the review meant (I had to look up the word schmaltzy and come to the realization that it wasn’t referring to some film director’s last name), so I thought that perhaps other parts of the review would confuse me. But I really enjoyed reading the review, and I understood it perfectly. It was rather refreshing to read a review that didn’t simply offer a general outline of the film and highlight high points and low points. It was witty, personal, and fun. You focused more on why such a movie made it to the big screen in the first place, referencing other cinema along the way. I loved the phrases “son launcher” and “schmaltzy nepotism” (there’s that word again).
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments, Miranda.
Great review. I couldn’t agree more.
This article confused me a little. Was it one thought on “Schmaltzy Sci-Fi Hits Summer Screens? or was it a collection of movies that did not intellectually challenge you?
I though that the review was well written
So are you saying that Will Smith purposely acted in a terrible movie to promote his son? Because when I saw the preview I thought, “This is going to be an awful movie” but then I saw Will Smith and thought, “Well it is Will Smith. Maybe it’s better than I think it is.” Interesting thought.
Do you write for Knightly news?