After Earth (2013)

“After Earth” must be mocked. How else to react to a sci-fi survivalist tale from once-great director/writer M. Night Shyamalan that is set on a desolated/abandoned future Earth, but one that looks like a commercial for a tropical adventure? (Cities? There are none.) This is absolute unintended comedy, a wonder of miscalculation. Despite MNS’s name, Will Smith is the man in charge as producer and story creator, and it isn’t even his vehicle. The star is Smith’s teenage son Jaden, who had better luck and better support in pop’s “Pursuit of Happyness” and the recent “Karate Kid” remake. The syrupy story has a “Great Santini” father (Will) and his green horn son (Jaden) all angry dinner scowls and then later crashing their space shuttle on said Earth. Naturally, the duo must bond as son serves as the “avatar” hero of his father, whose legs are shattered. Also in the shuttle and now loose on Earth because no space cliché can go untouched: A slimy monster that eats people. I can take hodge-podge films that wink at their theft, but “Earth” is blindly, awkwardly convinced of its own “inspirational” Hallmark gruel. It's just gruel. Younger Smith looks miserable. C-

Jaws (1975)

“Jaws” is the “Godfather” of beach movies. There is nothing better or scarier, even with all the sequels (3-D!) and rip-offs and homages (“Piranha” and even “Alien”). All the “Gidget”-like fun flicks from before? “Jaws” killed ’em. New to BluRay, “Jaws” is better than ever in crisp, glorious widescreen with sound racketed up so every thump of John Williams’ score booms inside your gut. The picture is so clean one can see the horizon miles past the shaken trio of Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw as they battle a killer shark in the waters of New England. I need not discuss plot, right? Everyone knows it. And no wonder: Steven Spielberg, in his mid-20s, out of his league, and working with physical special effects that barely functioned, pulled out a masterpiece that can never be duplicated. Not with all the CGI in the world. The panic and confusion off screen spills onscreen where anything can happen. The shark doesn’t appear for an hour, but by then Spielberg has pulled us in with brilliantly drawn characters and intense trickery. Shaw rules as the doomed shark hunter and has the best intro ever in a movie. A+