I had been anticipating this movie since I saw Will Smith and his son on their promotion tour for this movie on Ellen. Ellen made a parody for this movie (which she usually does!) and it got me interested to watch the REAL movie.

Honestly, I didn’t really read up any synopsis whatsoever before this movie.
Thanks to invitation by Tiffany Yong, I got to watch this movie at its media preview!

This movie, in my own words, is about a journey for a boy to overcome his own limitations.

The set takes you to Earth, 1000 years after humans have abandon Earth. Earth was classified as a dangerous planet and all lifeforms had evolved to kill humans.

The plot tells a man, Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and his son Kitai(Jayden Smith) survived a crash landing on Earth with a monster in their cargo. With Cypher hurt, and their aircraft broken into 2 sections, Kitai was out 100km away from the cockpit to the tail section to retrieve a beacon to signal back to space to seek help.

The story tells very much based on the strained relationship between the father and son; a father whom Kitai felt that he’s always not around to listen to him and the lack of trust and faith upon his own son. On the other hand, Kitai had to battle his inner guilt towards his sister who died protecting him when he was young.

My ratings: 3.5 / 5 stars

My review:
The overall story is a pretty monotone, and very predictable.
The one reason I thought why anyone would stayed till the end was to see that one moment of impact, where Kitai rose up and conquer his own inner limitations.

However, I thought, the overall experience was mere average. There were no surprises even at that moment; just that ‘you know he finally did it this time’ kind of feeling.

There isn’t any much fighting scenes in this movie, so for Jayden Smith fans (after the Karate Kid), you may be disappointed.

The only surprising thing about this movie to me was that M Night Shyamalan directed this movie.
Known for his clean style of suspense and horror movies; this movie did reflect his style, just not enough. Even with the ending twist, was not much of an impact, only worthy of a chuckle.

For movie-goers who loves a deeper meaning, then yes, this may be interesting.
For long, people are familiar with this quote by Ambrose Redmoon:
‘Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear’

Cypher Raige gave new meaning to fear:
‘Fear is not real. It is a product of thoughts you create. Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real. But fear is a choice.’

This movie may not be a blockbuster, but if you have time and money to spare; yes, why not?
Surprisingly although the story don’t pack a punch, the CGs for this movie isn’t too bad, really.

This is the second movie Will Smith has worked with his son.
Their first movie was the Pursuit of Happyness.
Although the performance between the father and son for this movie were just average, I can see a real good development in the future for this father and son duel in the movie industry.

So for the fun of everything, (and if you have watched the parody above); check out the hilarious obstacle course between the father and son!

p.s. By now you can tell how much I love watching Ellen. 😛

Disclaimer: Movie compliments of The Cathay and OMY.SG. No monetary compensation was received. Opinions stated are genuine and honest. Also note that all sources, information, content, links are accurate at the time of posting.

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