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-

The Fly (1986) and The Fly II (1989)

David Cronenberg’s nightmare love story horror flick “The Fly” is mad genius, sickly twisted, and lets Jeff Goldblum spin gold as a loner nerd scientist named Seth Brundle who wants to change the world as we know it. He doesn’t, but sure as hell changes his own corner when a teleportation experiment goes wrong and he zaps himself and a house fly from one souped-up self-built transport pod to another, two go in, one comes out. Cronenberg fires on all bloody cylinders, starting with a romance between Goldblum and Geena Davis as a reporter, then sci-fi fantasy, then body horror as Seth morphs to a superman assured he has jumped the evolutionary ladder to mad man when his body starts falling apart, and becoming ... another. Twenty-six years on “Fly” still shocks with Goldblum’s transformation under makeup, and then the stop-motion creatures that replace him. The lines are cheesy – “Be afraid! Be very afraid!” – but the visuals burn deep, as does Cronenberg’s obsession with dying and disease. Last note: Mr. C must release a director’s cut soon: Check out a cut scene on YouTube, as Seth makes a monkey-cat as part of his own healing scheme shown later. Insane. A

In “The Fly II,” Cronenberg buzzes off to better films, and we’re stuck with Chris Walas – the makeup guy on the first film – as director of a “Like Father, Like Son” spookfest. Let’s give it points: “Fly II” flies in a different direction as Martin, the mutant flyboy of Goldblum’s scientist and Davis’ reporter, is raised inside a mega-corp lab, and as a 20-year-old (really 5) falls in love, all flowers and dancing sweet. Sure as hell, though, we get a grisly transformation and all goes to shit fast with bad visual effects and a LOL “Alien” rip off as Marty McFly (tee-hee!) goes on a bender against his surrogate Mr. Burns daddy, so boring bad, he could be a 1970s Disney villain. Lee Richardson is the old man, and Eric Stoltz – he did “Mask” before this – is young Martin. It’s all a maggot baby so unworthy of Cronenberg I wanted to take a rolled-up magazine and … well, you know. C