MONDELLO: Joe's aim here, like Kitai's, is to prove to the old man that he can take care of himself, and the shack he designs suggests he does have a few survivalist skills. ROBINSON: (As Joe) No, like a real house. ROBINSON: (As Joe) This is the site of our new house, man.īASSO: (As Patrick) What, like a treehouse? GABRIEL BASSO: (As Patrick) What could you be showing me in the woods right now? A suburban wilderness, let's note, close enough to fast food to be inhabitable by a contemporary teenager and the best buddy he takes with him. MONDELLO: So, like Kitai, Joe heads out into the wilderness without his dad. He will call you back sometime before his hot new bedtime of 7:30. OFFERMAN: (As Frank) Listen, Kelly, Joe can't talk right now because he's grounded. NICK OFFERMAN: (As Frank) Who's this, Patrick? It also features a 14-year-old boy who's at odds with a gruff father, boy played Nick Robinson and phone-grabbing dad by Nick Offerman of "Parks & Recreation." The indie flick "Kings of Summer" is a surprise partly because it's so unassuming. No surprises in "After Earth," not even one. Remember when he was known for trick endings and weird twists and then mocked for trick endings and weird twists? Well, he's learned.
And Faia, F-A-I-A, is, I'm going to guess, the acronym for the Florida Association of Insurance Agents?Īnd riding herd on all this nonsense is "Sixth Sense" director M. Seriously, those names, in Japanese Kitai means expectations. MONDELLO: Jaden Smith seems like a pleasant 14-year-old, but he's not remotely ready to carry a blockbuster on his own or to deal with a script so silly it even seems to stymie his dad. JADEN SMITH: (As Kitai) No, leave him alone. SMITH: (As Cypher Raige) Control yourself, Cadet. MONDELLO: Now if they'd send the actors on location instead of doing most of the picture digitally with green screens, "After Earth" probably would have cost about 20 bucks to make, mostly just two people, Will Smith sitting incapacitated in a wrecked spaceship communicating electronically with Jaden Smith, as he runs through the woods pursued by sadistic screenwriters. WILL SMITH: (As Cypher Raige) There's an emergency beacon in the tail section of our ship, approximately 100 kilometers from here. I'll spare you the details, but dad's legs are broken and there are human-hating critters everywhere.
MONDELLO: The dangerous mission becomes much more dangerous when their spaceship crashes on the very planet their ancestors left behind.
He does not need a commanding officer he needs a father. SOPHIE OKONEDO: (As Faia) He's reaching for you. So Cypher's wife Faia urges him to bond with his son Kitai by taking him on a dangerous mission. Happily, humankind still has take your kid to work days.
He's a gruff father and a fearless warrior with a teenage son who's trying desperately to follow in his footsteps 1,000 years after humankind has been forced to leave Earth for another planet. Two movies open today that at first glance have little in common, the science fiction blockbuster "After Earth" and the suburban indie comedy "Kings of Summer." Leave it to our critic Bob Mondello to find similarities.īOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Will Smith is playing a general in "After Earth" named Cypher Raige, which tells you all you really need to know about the character, but let's brush in a few details. From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.