Popular reviews

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  Review by Tim Portis ★★ 9

  Will the man who kidnapped the director M. Night Shyamalan after he made The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, and is now pretending to be him, please return him immediately. Sh*t's not funny anymore.

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  Review by Mike Thorn ★★★★★ 9

  Underrated, even by Shyamalan enthusiasts. I've read comparisons to Malick and Herzog, which I think are absolutely on point, and I'd also favorably compare this to George Lucas's Star Wars prequels (painterly digital form + archetypal mythmaking). Extratextual references can only go so far, though; this is another iteration of Shyamalan's career-long fixations, played out against a blockbuster backdrop. Really gorgeous stuff. I'm surprised this doesn't get more attention.

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  Review by davidehrlich ½ 1

  i'm ghosting.

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  Review by DirkH ★ 19

  Shyamalan's latest outing seems solely intent on giving all his haters reason to say: ‘See! He's an untalented git!'. After Earth makes it very difficult to defend his case. Much like Shyamalan's apparent state of mind while making this, I just couldn't be bothered.

  It's absolutely amazing how this script manages to stuff itself with so many cliches and so much bloated self importance. Wanting to tackle heavy themes like father-son relationships and wrap it in a coming of age tale with a Sci Fi backdrop is ambitious. Stick it in a 'let's get from A to B' video game format and handle every single aspect (bar perhaps a couple of gorgeous vistas) with a completely uninspired vision and you…

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  Review by esther ★★★★ 3

  shyamalan taking his name off the marketing for this makes ppl remember it as sort of an anonymous entry in his filmography (that is certainly how i received it when i first watched it five or so years ago) but i think that's unfair! this movie is a treat, just a really solidly made family sci-fi adventure thing. jaden and will do really good work too. it's so fun to see one of the most likable actors of all time do his best to suppress that expressive charisma, and jaden is honestly quite compelling as a kid trying and failing to do the same. as hannah put it while we were watching, no one knows how to tell the difference between a good performance and a charismatic one. she's really smart i love her a lot. anyway this movie is good!

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  Review by Max Coombes ★★★★★ 17

  I'm only writing about one day — we talked before but we talked proper on Nwoye's birthday. He added me to discuss all serious, like it was the most serious thing in the world, air conditioning and Plex and various film transfers I should avoid. When I was like Okay sure, he cut in and said Never mind, he actually just wanted to talk about After Earth, his favourite film. He said he was getting his words together for an editorial on the interconnected reformations of male blackness on screen, with reference to After Earth and Juice. He noted the condescension of genre and black expression prevalent in (even positive) popular reviews on this website, then quickly switched to say…

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  Review by Cinema Strikes Back ★ 1

  An diesem Film sollte sich jeder angehende Science-Fiction-Filmemacher ein Bespiel nehmen... um zu sehen wie Science-Fiction NICHT sein sollte! Hölzerne, unnatürliche Dialoge, unglaubwürdiges Schauspiel, der schlechteste Kinderdarsteller, den ich je gesehen habe, und hässliche CGI mitten im Uncanny Valley machen After Earth zu einem unangenehmen Filmerlebnis, das an zahlreichen haarsträubenden Schwächen in der Handlung leidet. Warum zum Himmel geht eigentlich jedes technische Wunderwerk dieser ach so zivilisierten Menschheit so schnell kaputt? Warum ist dieser Film so vollgepackt mit Film-Klischees? Und warum hat Jaden Smith nicht wenigstens ein Fünkchen von dem Talent, das sein Vater hat? Fragen, die unbeantwortet bleiben.

  Was allerdings den Film letzten Endes völlig disqualifiziert, worüber schon viele Journalisten berichtet haben und was mittlerweile an After Earth haftet…

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  Review by alor ★ 2

  When I say I love films this one's not included

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  Review by Sydney🚀 ★★½ 11

  A movie about a dad believing in his son :)

  Yeah, I’d like to prioritize my integrity as a critic over my M. Night bias and I unfortunately don’t fall into the “this is great, actually” camp but it is not as bad as you people say!! It has a bigger heart than most blockbuster fare, that’s probably its best asset, but I just don’t think this man is fit for large scale, populist cinema. He specializes in contained, subtle emotional dynamics and bigger movies call for bigger, more exciting emotions. That inherent contrast just makes the whole thing feel a bit wonky… it unsurprisingly excels most in the intimate character moments but it’s incomplete and almost halfhearted in other ways. There’s also just no rationalizing those accents. Wtf.

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★ 10

  Action!: The Campy, The Violent and The Plot Twist — Its a Plot Twist! The Shyamalan Chronicles

  I remember watching this movie with my mom at one point when we were given HBO for free for a whole weekend by our cable provider. The response for this was horrible, with almost everyone hating it, so I had very low expectations. I think that was the right choice because I remember liking it a lot.

  Upon rewatching, my thoughts remain the same.

  The notion that this is a terrible Shyamalan movie is in many ways unfair. He was, as far as I understand, just a director for hire and this was a Will Smith project from start to finish. The movie…

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★½

  The best part of this movie is Will Smith and Jaden Smith, and the feeling, right or wrong, that we are seeing something about their real relationship, and about a father who is trying to see if his son of worthy of his legacy. For the world's biggest movie star to make that story, and to cast his aspiring actor son in it with him, is kind of interesting.

  The worst part of this movie is Jaden Smith, who would not be in this movie if he wasn't born with the great fortune to be Will Smith's son. He is, frankly, not very good. In a movie with basically two characters, that is a problem.

  Still, it's M. Night Shyamalan's best movie in a while. Faint praise, damning, etc.

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  Review by Ryan Daniel ★★ 3

  I was expecting this movie to be bad, and it was, but I didn’t hate it. It’s inventive and its got some good moments, as long as the moments have nothing to do with the acting or writing. I think we can all agree that Jaden Smith shouldn’t be allowed in movies anymore. It was cute in Pursuit of Happyness, but now it’s just unbearable.

  It’s hard to say what I think of M. Night as a whole. For whatever reason, I love the guy. I think some of his movies are flaming piles of shit, but the good ones are really good, and the ‘meh’ and bad ones still have that style and flare that I really enjoy watching.

  My mom’s favorite director is M. Night Shyamalan. I’m not really sure where that fits, but I wanted to throw that in here because I thought that was the strangest thing. I never would have guessed that.