As CW McCall once said, "Look out below, 'cause here we go!"
Yes, M. Knight has done it again, and no one is quite sure why. After the tragedy that was "The Last Airbender," I would have thought that this 'person' would have been blacklisted by now, but I guess he was all that the Smiths could afford?!
Warning: SPOILERS ahead!Despite all the bad press and harsh words from reviewers, this movie is not that bad. OK, it’s bad – but it’s bad on a different level. What's the worst is that it could have been really good.
As one reviewer said, and I paraphrase, it’s not enough to give your famous Hollywood rich kid a new car or a house. Now you give them their very own overhyped blockbuster of a cinematic failure. Every single Smith except for Willow is credited in this near-debacle, but I guess when you’re Will Smith, you can do that?
Our premise is well known: Humanity has ruined the Earth and evacuated it. How they got the technology or the resources to be able to do so is never explained. But everyone left Earth for the Nova System, a habitable world with at least 3 other moons/planets prominent in the night sky – even in daylight. The Rangers are the main military force, and they seemingly recruit and train them young. Perhaps they also found a way to stabilize this impossible solar system?
Will Smith is the big famous General, and his son a flunkie-cadet who doesn’t get his Ranger certification. Fearing to disappoint his father, we see the parallel that this movie made all too clear: while Jaden Smith was cute and loveable in “Karate Kid,” as a FINE looking teenager (sorry), he’s not that great of an actor here for this part. However, there are a few points in the film where he does get it right, and we have to wonder if he was thinking, during filming, “what if I don’t live up to Dad’s rep?”
Well, he didn’t.
And we see that in the movie, in his character.
The plot is predictable. As we know, in 1,000 years, Earth has radically changed. All lifeforms seem to have evolved to destroy humans. Even the leeches are lethal, their bite causing overall central nervous system collapse.
But how did our intrepid Smiths get back to Earth? That’s unclear.
They leave Nova to deliver an Ursa, a lifeform turned loose on them by “The Aliens” who apparently don’t like having new neighbors. We don’t know a thing about The Aliens - just that they created the Ursas, then turned them loose on Nova to eat the Humans. OK…
As a child, little Jaden watched his older sister get attacked by one, and die, of course. This scars him for life, as he was protected. You see, the Ursas are blind, and have to smell your fear to find you. Whatever… Let's build a GMO killing creature to kill humans, but not give it eyes!
So we all get on the ship, which travels through space without: Warp drive, shields, good navigation, or Mr. Scott. Sorry, wrong flick! They hit an asteroid storm. You didn’t see it coming? The pilots didn’t either. They are transporting an Ursa to somewhere – we’re not sure where, but it’s to train new cadets. You see, you can only defeat one by hiding from it, by not fearing it, so it cannot smell your fear and then you can kill it. Not sure if they taste like chicken or not.
We also don't have much security on it. Just a curtain with a DO NOT ENTER sign, which doesn't stop Jaden. No force fields, no locks, no bars...no nothing. But it's a killer, remember?
Anyway, General Dad orders them to “travel”, which means using the Wormhole Drive or whatever the hell it is. The computer is apparently damaged, and takes them back to Earth, which is quarantined. I won’t go into the silliness of the environmental changes we’re expected to accept. They make no sense, only that Humans can’t survive there now. Lack of oxygen is one, and of course, Junior is dangerously low on oxygen boosters as a plot device. Yet the other animals don’t seem to suffer from this.
Onward.
The ship crashed. Only the Smiths survive. So does the Ursa. It runs away. So would I. Smart beastie! At this point, I had to go pee.
And so begins the 100 km trek to the tail of the wrecked ship. General Dad is badly hurt, but Junior has his LifeSuit, which will send Dad a movie of the whole trip, live, and protect the boy, too. So, our flunkie has to learn to follow orders, be a Ranger, and save the day – not to mention Dad, who is critically injured, of course. Along the way, as I said, even the slugs want to kill him.
Then he’s attacked by baboons, who damage his Suit and too many of his oxygen “snort packs”. Now he can’t make it back. We’re all gonna die…
But WAIT!
The boy doesn’t follow orders. Turns out, Dad didn’t either, one time. The boy has to decide, when Dad advises, “You have to decided how YOU feel about the orders.” Turns out, his disobedience saves the day, or maybe not. Tell me the real military works like this?!
Turns out, his Suit is also a squirrel-suit – like Rocky the flying squirrel, he can glide over the giant canyon to the ship’s tail and activate the rescue beacon. Then the mother of all giant eagles shows up to chase him.
At this point, I had to get more Diet Coke and sneak my sugar-free cookies out of my hoodie. I was need of a cookie by this time, you see!
Insert the typical M. Knight Shyamallama-Ding-Dong-Twist – the bird isn’t trying to kill him. No, no. She thinks he’s a baby bird and she grabs him and takes him back to her nest with the other babies that look NOTHING like a Human in a Rocky-the-flying-squirrel Suit. Then the tigers attack, to eat the baby eagles. Junior fights them off, but the babies all die, all the while, he’s reliving one of the hundreds of flashbacks to the Ursa eating his sister when he was a little boy. Both boy and eagle are distraught, but the boy goes on, leaving the puzzlingly uninterested bird to mourn.
More mayhem ensues. To use the beacon, once he finds it, he must climb a volcano! There's interference, you see. It can send a message light years away in a seconds, like Star Trek, but a thunderstorm will jam it? But wait – he’s so tired, he falls asleep while rafting down the river. Amazingly, nothing tries to eat him this time, but the ghost of his dead sister comes to revive him before he freezes to death. Seems that the temperature falls to sub-zero at night, but yet all these plants and animals have adapted to this and do not die of it. Only humans freeze to death at night on Earth.
So, with no ‘hot spot’ to shelter him, the boy is trying to outrun the frost. He fails. Then something drags him off as he passes out. He wakes up under something warm, and it’s the mother eagle, who has come back for him. Shielding him from the freeze, she gives her life for him, her adopted but prodigal baby. I almost cried, in that the bird loves him more than his own Dad does.
Yeah, it was that cheesy.
Up the volcano, but wait, here comes the Ursa. Did I mention that Dad was near death from a broken leg and a cut femoral artery?
And so our hero conquers his fear, kicks the Ursa’s ass, kills it, and activates the beacon. We all live happily ever after on Nova. I think. They never addressed that part.
This movie could have been good if so much hadn’t been left out. We’re expected to accept too much on faith, or use our imaginations. How did we evacuate? Where is Nova? How’d we get there? Who are the Aliens? Why don’t they like us? And if Earth is now so wild and pastoral and healed up from us raping it so, what happened to all the Redneck game hunters to control these critters? Does evolution really move that FAST in 1,000 years?! And what about the OXYGEN those endless jungles secrete?!
Also, the movie is all about the father-son thing. Does Dad like me? Am I a failure in his eyes? I need my Dad. Why isn’t my Dad around? Then, of course, I’m a teenager, don’t tell ME what to do! I know it all. Oh shit, wait, I’m on my own!
There are a few brief moments of good father/son relationship, but they are very few. Most of the time, it is General Dad being an unemotional ass to his son, who so desperately needs him and just wants to cry. But in the end, the boy has proven himself and they’re going to live happily ever after – just as soon as they both quit the Rangers!
Still, if you happen to like the Smiths, there’s enough of Jaden in that suit and Will being quite out of character to keep you entertained. The acting is awful, it’s not comedy like “Men in Black,” but it does have a few redeeming points.
Three, I think.
My advice – wait for the DVD, then skip that, too.
Unless you want to have impure thoughts about Jaden Smith in the jungle, though…
...which just made me think of another way the movie could have been better - rip up that suit a bit and show us some...NEVER MIND!