After Earth

So as my first official post on this blog, I thought I would review a movie I saw today in the theater, After Earth. I went in to the movie theater with low expectations, and I wasn't really surpised at the results. I think that the concept of the story is fairly interesting, and it could have been a good movie except for two things. First, the acting. Will Smith wasn't bad, but I felt like his character showed no development and he had a very small emotional range. He literally didn't change his facial expression throughout the whole movie, which I found boring. Jaden Smith's acting was honestly pretty bad, and I feel like he still has a lot to learn about showing emotions. It seemed like the only emotions he ever portrayed were anger and fear, and he portrayed neither very well. The second thing that bothered me about the movie was the effects. From what I've heard, alot of money was spent on this movie, so I am disappointed with the quality of the animation. One last thing that wasn't necessarily bad was the character's accents. Both Will Smith and Jaden Smith are American, but everyone in the movie spoke in what sounded like a cross between a British and Polynesian accent which was very odd. I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of that was, but it consistently bothered me throughout the movie. A redeeming feature of the movie, in my opinion, was the score. The music was done by James Newton Howard, and I thought it was very good. I enjoy a movie soundtrack when it really adds to the movie's mood, and I thought that the way James Newton Howard contributed to that was very well done. Overall, I thought it was an okay movie, but certainly not anything to get excited about.