Will Smith Shows Us What Happens ‘After Earth’

Look, I like post-apocalyptic sci-fi thrillers as much as the next guy, but with the end of the world coming on December 21st (great day for me to be flying in a plane, btw) this past week has been sort of armageddon overload. Yesterday, we got the trailer for “Oblivion” starring Tom Cruise as Jack Harper, one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Today, we got the trailer for “After Earth” in which Will Smith plays a legendary general who crash lands on Earth one thousand years after cataclysmic events forced mankind to find a new home.

This sort of thing happens in Hollywood – take, for example, “Dante’s Peak” and “Volcano”, “The Truman Show” and “ED TV”, “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” and “Kalifornia”. It’s a small world out there, someone pitches something and an assistant overhears it, gets fired because he/she forgot to cup someone’s balls during fellaysh, and blurts it out at his/her new position with the most competitive agency. And since “A.E.” is directed by M. Night Shyamalan, we can expect a twist ending – like Will Smith and Tom Cruise are actually the same person and we’re all aliens.