After Earth - Not as bad as everyone said (but not that good either)

`After Earth' is a science fiction story starring Will Smith and his real-life son Jaden Smith. And, if you believe pretty much every critic's review, you could be forgiven for thinking it's the worst film ever. And it's not. However, that doesn't mean it's that good, either).

For a start, there are (excluding the first twenty minutes) only two characters in the entire film: Will and Jaden. They crash land on a barren Earth some time after humanity have left it due to excessive alien attacks and various human-gobbling monsters. This lack of characters might not be so bad if they were that likeable, but they're not. Will plays the `bad-ass' soldier and Jaden plays his pretty-timid son. This mean that there's no initial warmth between them (but, of course, I'm sure there will be by the time the end credits roll). It's like having two Vulcans as stars, only Vulcans are actually quite helpful and friendly, rather than just biting each other's heads off.

However, it's not all bad - the initial special effects were good. I liked the atmosphere and gadgets while Will and Jaden were still aboard the space ships. It's just a pity that the good special effects degenerated into one CGI monster after the next.

Then there's the story. Basically, you could have the film on mute and still know what's happening, or even watch it on fast forward. It's just one disaster after the next and you know that, baring in mind there's only two cast-members, neither will come to that much harm.

For kids, who might not have seen much sci-fi, they may like it. Jaden is the star and they'll probably like seeing a kid save the day for his parent. However, for us hardened sci-fi geeks, we really expect a little more than a few computer-generated landscapes and monsters.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back