Movie Review: After Earth

After Earth, starring Will Smith and his real-life son, Jaden Smith, is an action-fantasy flick about a father and son, who escaped Planet Earth with the rest of humanity over a thousand years before, and established a new home on a planet they christened Nova Prime. The father, General Cypher Raige, is head of the planet’s most prominant family. He and his wife had two children, a daughter and a son. But the daughter was killed long ago, leaving their son, Kitai, to bear the strain of an only child. 

            Kitai feels enormous pressure to follow in his father’s legendary footsteps. As a result, the relationship between father and son is tense. To reconnect, the General takes his son on a routine trip. Due to unforeseen circumstances, he and his crew must break regulations and land on Planet Earth. As the aircraft enters Earth’s atmosphere, it malfunctions and splits in two. Both pieces make landfall, but most of the crew has been killed. General Cypher Raige and his son, Kita,i are the only two survivors.

            Kitai awakens in a panic and rummages around until he comes upon his father. Once the General comes to, he discovers that both his legs are broken and he can’t go anywhere. When he locates the emergency beacon that all aircraft are equipped with, it is damaged and useless. Their only hope now is to find the backup beacon stored in the tail end of the spacecraft, which lies many miles away.

            Tasked with finding and retrieving the second beacon, Kitai makes his way across the wild and dangerous terrain.  Now it will take all his training to succeed, if not for his own sake, than for his father’s.