Keanen's Film Blog

No.

It was on the cusp of being a meme, but not as much of a meme as the Will & Jaden family drama. Allegedly, Will Smith hired Shyamalan to direct a vanity project tragedy starring his son, then Shyamalan said “What if we make it a Star War?”

It’s hard to talk about this movie without dwelling on personal feelings of disappointment, so let’s talk about the family drama instead. Jaden was around 14 at the time of filming, and as with all of the Smith family, daddy tried to turn him into a sex symbol. It’s all about the suit.

There is definitely some H.R. Giger inspiration, and I don’t think Jaden had to look quite so sullen in this promotional photo, but if you ignore all the dark greys and depressing vibes the film shoves down your throat, you can see the craftsmanship and optimism of the Evangelion franchise and even Star Trek. That’s what the ads make you believe. They sure spent those dollars.

Anyways, Jaden became an emancipated minor and started doing indie films where he could be sullen and make everyone depressed. His father continues to do mainstream profitable schlock that gets less and less sincere by the day. I don’t know if the film killed the dynasty or if the death of the movie business took the Smiths with it, but I do know that After Earth damaged the cinematic medium.

Shyamalan’s next film was The Visit, a garbage found footage movie that proves anyone can make movies. I do think the bar needed to be lowered, so M. Night is a good person for making postmodernist cinema more accessible. But he did it without the Smiths. I’m a good person for learning from his example and following through on that precedent, though what I made in response to films like The Visit is a story for another day.

The word count is still a little low, so I’ll finish this review with a plot synopsis:

Jaden lives in a space world with Will and his mom. Will is a badass space mercenary/defender of worlds. There are mean aliens that look like bugs. Will kills bugs. Will takes Jaden to Earth, which is now a shithole planet, and Jaden kills bugs. Then a really big bug that got out of Will’s cage tries to kill Jaden, but Jaden turns invisible by acting depressed so the bug can’t smell him, and he kills the bug. The end.