After Earth

Certificate 12A, 100 minutes, ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Sophie Okonedo and Zoe Kravitz star in this M Knight Shyamalan directed sci-fi movie.

For some reason, humanity has been forced to leave Earth and move to new digs on Nova Prime, where everything looks like it belongs to a cross between a sailboat and a Persil commercial (other detergents are available, and probably needed to keep all the white fabrics clean...). All well and good, apart from the alien bugs that  go around killing people and spiking them with extreme prejudice.

Daddy Smith plays a general in the interstellar space force, who is the only person that's immune to these bugs, because he has no fear (it seems they hunt by detecting the pheromones produced by fear). Actually he has no real emotion of any sort. Diddy Smith plays his son, who idolises his father but has obedience issues after his older sister was killed by one of these bugs.

Anyhow, Daddy and Diddy wind up together on this spaceship which gets damaged in a meteor storm and crashes on a now-interdicted Earth. Daddy is badly injured and so is forced to sit in part of the wrecked spaceship, wearing a "who wrote this crap? Oh, it was me... what was I thinking?" pout, while Diddy wanders around the planet being chased by CG apes and giant eagles and being out acted by the trees. Of course this giant bug shows up, and the only way Diddy can survive to save the day is to show no fear. But since he hasn't shown any other emotions up to this point, that shouldn't be too difficult.

I'm still left wondering why Hollywood keeps letting Shyamalan back behind a camera, since he only demonstrates time and time again a talent for awfulness. And I have to say this film is just as bad as the rest.