IN RETROSPECT….WILL SMITH

For the 9th iteration of this series, I wanted to cover a man whose reputation was completely destroyed on Oscar Night 2022. A man who has somewhat justifiably been the butt of jokes in many different ways. A pillar of black excellence, a transcendent superstar of the highest order, and believe it or not, a man who’s become a mildly controversial figure in the last two and a half years…

WILLARD CARROLL SMITH

As a man who regularly entertains conversations about cinema quite a bit since establishing an amateur movie podcast, one thing I find truly appalling is the dismissal of this man’s impact on the last generation of cinema. The word overrated comes up quite a bit now by people who do not know what the hell they’re talking about, and I feel that this is my documentation of just how incredible this man’s resume is.

That being said, this is a series that covers the essential work of the subject at hand, and there are just a couple of movies of his that really…don’t matter as much as the rest of them do. And there are cameos here and there. There aren’t many of them, but they do exist. Those films include:

Made in America
Six degrees of separation
Jersey girl
Shark tale
The legend of bagger Vance
Spies in disguise
Winter’s Tale
Anchorman 2
Dad’s
Where the Day takes you

Yes, I do acknowledge that shark tale and spies in disguise are films that made money and all that, and Bagger Vance?? come on now. Those are not essential Will Smith movies. You’re crazy to think that if that is the case.

And as for emancipation… Well, I don’t do slave movies anymore. I don’t care about the intent behind it, I’ve promised myself to never see another slave movie ever again no matter how good the trailer may look. Personal reasons. Never again.

Anywho, without further ado here is…..

THE WILL SMITH TIER LIST!!!

Greatness 🤩
Greatness Adjacent
Goodness 😊
Meh...
What the f*** is this garbage? 🤮

🤩GREATNESS🤩

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Is it one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made? No. But it is one of the best films of the '90s and a transcendent movie that really ushered in the idea of a summer blockbuster. Big Willy Weekend was in fact a thing for a considerable amount of time and it started here. There are very few films that I have more of a sentimental connection to than this one. (But I will get to that later...)

KING RICHARD

The 2022 Oscars were such a s*** show that it made the public at large forget what an amazing performance this is. Up until that day, Smith owned awards season and almost swept the circuit in the leading actor category for good reason. This is a towering performance, and his best without question.

MEN IN BLACK

One of the greatest action comedies of all time. The pairing of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones is absolute magic and thinking back on it... kind of a wild pairing to put in a movie like this. You couldn't find two more different kinds of actors to pair up. Thinking back on it, one of the keys to Will Smith's on-screen success was his ability to have fantastic chemistry with whoever he shared the screen with. This will come up quite a few times as we go over his resume.

ALI

There are a couple of biopics that an instantaneously come to mind when I think of the perfect actor to play a real-life icon. Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela, Joaquin Phoenix playing Johnny Cash, Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Truman Capote, Jamie Foxx playing Ray Charles, Denzel Washington playing Malcolm X... and Will Smith playing Muhammad Ali. This is a movie that very much qualifies to be in the good category, but Smith's performance takes it way over the top into absolute greatness. I cannot imagine Muhammad Ali watching this film without a smile on his face.

HITCH

One of the greatest romantic comedies of all time. There are many different classic scenes and lines from this film. Smith at this point had firmly established his reputation as an action superstar and this was a wild change of pace. But then, you kind of remember that this is The fresh Prince of Bel-Air after all, and this is in his wheelhouse completely. Kevin James also gives a career-best performance, as does Eva Mendes, and Amber Valletta.

I AM LEGEND

This is an aptly named film by all means. The mark of a truly legendary performance from an actor is when that actor can hold down 90% of the running time of an entire film just by themselves. (Cast Away, Buried, Gravity, Locke, Moon, All is Lost) I can only imagine it's probably the hardest kind of thing a movie star can do, and it seems like only the biggest movie stars or the most heralded of character actors have been able to do it and make it look effortless. Whatever perception there was at the time of the star power or skill of Will Smith was elevated to a considerable extent and he was already the biggest star on the planet.

ALADDIN

There have been a couple of times when an actor has had to play a legendary role in a remake or spin-off of something and the shoes were just too big to fill from the actor who played that famous role before. I cannot imagine bigger shoes to fill than arguably the most famous Robin Williams performance of all time. Wisely, the decision in this movie wasn't to try and emulate what Williams did. The plan by design was to make Will Smith play the Genie by doing his particular brand of humor and playfulness. And it worked. This is the best live-action Disney remake in existence, and I'm ready to have that debate if you are.

GREATNESS ADJACENT

The pursuit of happYness

Even after the Oscar win, people really consider this to be the best Will Smith performance. I respect the opinion even though it is incorrect. This is the bronze medal however, and I would say that if Forest Whitaker hadn't had the performance of his career, Smith very well could have won his first Oscar for this movie. Also worth mentioning is that his son Jaden Smith may have gotten robbed of an Oscar nomination himself. Child performers do occasionally get nominations for performances that are nowhere near as good as his.

THE FIRST TWO BAD BOYS MOVIES

Though this may be somewhat of a cold take, when it comes to the action Bad boys 2 is peak Michael Bay destruction and mayhem. (In a good way) The freeway Chase with the car hauler truck is the Michael Bay-iest Michael Bay-type action sequence that you will ever see. There's also really well-stylized shootouts done in a way that only he can do.

What these movies also prove is that the chemistry that exists between Martin Lawrence and Will Smith is second to none. As previously mentioned, Smith has a knack for finding on-screen chemistry with almost anybody he shares a screen with. But the chemistry with Martin is next level. I can only think of a handful of on-screen duos that even remotely come close to this kind of chemistry. There are so many quotable lines, and famous scenes within these two movies that have stood the test of time (Reggie at the doorstep, the captain shooting jumpers, Mike running with his shirt open, Woo-Sah, etc etc etc) and it wouldn't surprise me if you said that these two were improvising in every single scene mentioned.

ENEMY OF THE STATE

Talk about a movie that's aged well. This movie was made back in 1998 and made so many on-the-spot predictions about elements of social media and the internet that are really, really relevant today. It's actually quite incredible to watch this again and to see how much stuff is really on the nose. On top of all over that it is a world class 1990 style thriller. Whenever I get into an argument with one of you jabronis about how great 90s cinema used to be, this is one of the prime examples that I use.

HANCOCK

This film (along with movies like wedding Crashers, true lies, wall*e, The fifth Element, and district 9) absolutely belongs in the "why in the f*** did this not ever get a sequel?" Hall of Fame. If we really just start thinking about the quality of superhero origin stories, then Hancock is right up there with the best of them. We just don't pay attention to that because it doesn't have any IP to go back on and for the most part, it is pretty weird to center your film around a superhero PR campaign. But it works. This is one of Will Smith's best characters.

😊GOOD😊

BAD BOYS FOR LIFE

The bad news is that there is no Michael Bay around to handle these action sequences and it shows. Not that the action is bad or anything like that, but it does not have that sense of chaos like the Michael Bay films had. The good news is that Mike Lowry and Marcus Burnett now represent the coolest uncles at the barbecue who will argue about everything in the most hilarious way possible...who also just so happen to be badass detectives.

BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE (SEE REVIEW HERE)

MEN IN BLACK 3

Perhaps there was a little bit of miracle casting in finding Josh Brolin to capture the same kind of vibes that Tommy Lee Jones had with Smith in this film. The plot twist at the ending was a very nice touch and really wrapped the series up in a nice little bow after the massive disappointment of MEN IN BLACK 2.

FOCUS

What genre exactly is this movie? I don't necessarily ask that as a complaint, but what really is it? Romance and comedy sure, but definitely not a rom-com. Dramatic elements all around but it's not a flat-out drama either. This movie is a tried and true star vehicle. The only reason why it is as enjoyable as it is is because of the two extremely glamorous movie stars playing extremely glamorous characters in an extremely glamorous setting. This is the most swagged-out character that Will Smith has ever played. A character so swagged out that the swag can only be equaled and not surpassed.

I, ROBOT

Does anybody really flat-out hate this movie? It's a popcorn blockbuster in its most basic form but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's enjoyable from beginning to end, has some interesting action sequences, none of the performances are bad, the special effects are fine, and the story makes sense from beginning to end and wraps itself up nicely. This movie does what it sets out to do in being just a good enough movie to see on a date or on a fun night out with some friends. Sometimes things aren't that complicated.

MEH...

BRIGHT

Borderline trash. The only thing that really keeps it from being in the trash category is a strong third act and the performances of Smith and Joel Edgerton. The universe they built around this is silly as f***, and the movie takes itself way too seriously for us to care about this universe. This is a movie that's trying to make social statements while mentioning things like magic wands and fairies. It really came down to a coin flip as to put this in the trash category or not. If somebody wants to say that it is, I do not put up an argument whatsoever, even though I disagree.

7 POUNDS

There are really good parts in this movie... but man, this movie bothers me. It bothers me that so many great actors are in it and they all seem wasted to an extent, outside of Rosario Dawson who is trying as hard as she can. It bothers me how grim and gloomy it is for no reason. It bothers me how the main character's motivation isn't necessarily revealed until the tail end of the final act. It bothers me that there's a love story forced into this whole thing that has no point whatsoever. And most of all... I hate that there is this one particular piece of music that they continuously use throughout the film that has a piano key that's out of tune. That REALLY GOT ON MY F****** NERVES. Not trash. But annoying.

collateral beauty

A guy is in the middle of a spiraling nervous breakdown because of the death of his daughter. He is a chief executive at an advertising company that he works at with his friends. Because his spiral is ruining their business they have hired a private investigator to hopefully label him as crazy so that their jobs aren't in jeopardy. All of the dirt that the investigator can find is that he has been writing letters...to "love" "death" and "time". The friends come up with the idea to hire actors to play "love" "death" and "time" so that he may truly believe that he himself has gone insane. That's it. That really is the story. Aside from Smith himself, there are no less than five f****** academy award nominated actors in this film. It's an astonishing cast to look at considering that all of them are here in this. THIS. Really? THIS?!

MEN IN BLACK 2

It was fine. The problem with this movie was that it was a copy-and-paste job mostly from what the first one tried to do. (Instead of Agent K recruiting Agent J it's now flipped) Lara Flynn Boyle and Johnny Knoxville are the key villains of this and...yeah.

This isn't exactly a disaster, but it is a very disappointing follow-up to one of the best action comedies of all time.

CONCUSSION

The accent was fine. I know it sounds cartoonish if you just hear it without any context. But when you see interviews with Bennet Omalu, the man who Smith portrayed... He actually did a pretty good job. The subject matter is very interesting especially if you're a football fan and David Morse is undoubtedly doing Oscar-worthy stuff in this film. I tend to lump in collateral beauty, 7 pounds, and this film all in one. It's almost like if Picasso had his blue period, that's what these films felt like for Smith even though these films were not released concurrently.

🤮WTF IS THIS GARBAGE?!🤮

SUICIDE SQUAD

Kind of hard to say something about this film that hasn't already been said a trillion times. It's poorly lit, the score of the movie is weird, there are too many characters, the special effects are bad, it's the worst Joker ever by quantum light years, I don't know if Harley Quinn is that good of a fighter to take on multiple larger goons all by herself with no help...oh, and the Enchantress is THE WORST SINGULAR COMIC BOOK VILLAIN IN THE HISTORY OF THE GENRE. Cara Delevingne has been decent in a lot of things, not here. She gives an atrocious performance and that is being kind.

AFTER EARTH

This film has one of the most misleading trailers of all time. Unlike many Shyamalan films before, there really was no twist ending to this. The big twist of this film came at the end of the first act when Will Smith's character dies. And then he's gone for the rest of the film. (Spoiler alert by the way. I'm doing you a favor.) That leaves you with a lot of Jaden Smith. I'm not nearly as hard on Jaden Smith as the rest of the people are. He's been decent more times than he's been bad. I know that for certain. How do I know that? Because the one truly bad performance that he has ever had is in this film.

WILD WILD WEST

For a long time, I never understood the vitriol. The booming voices of hatred that there were for this film. I thought it was fun. Yes, I understood that it was silly as f***. Yes, I understood that Kevin Kline didn't exactly gel with Smith in the same way that seemingly everybody else did whenever he was paired with them. And yes, that theme song was not all that great. But still, I gave this film the benefit of the doubt... And then I tried to watch it as a full-grown man, and I just couldn't do it. This film has aged extremely badly. And feels like Smith did this to try and see if he can make a bad enough film that would tank amidst the hot streak that he was on.

GEMINI MAN

Just... Why? The potential for this movie was through the roof when you just look at things on paper. You get a two-time Academy Award-winning director, you get Smith doing dual performances, you look at the cast and it all just seems so perfect...but then, high frame rate comes into play. And it all blows up in a very ugly way. Though I understand the curiosity behind HFR when it was all the rage, between this movie and THE HOBBIT TRILOGY it became crystal clear that HFR should never be used by anybody ever again. Peter Jackson and Ang Lee are Oscar-winning directors. If anybody could have made HFR work it would have been them. And...they couldn't.

Cinematic apogee

As a man of a certain age, I find it funny that there are few moments of my life in recent history that I have big memories of, but when it comes to things that happened long long ago, I remember very specific details of entire days.

When I was 14 years old I went with my mother's boyfriend to a movie theater formerly known as the Kent 6 Cinemas in Kent, Washington. The date was July 17th, 1996. I remember that I had a quarter-pounder with cheese before I went to the movie theater, I remember where we parked. I remember the seat that I sat in. Why do I have such specific memories of this day? Well, July 17th, 1996 was the day that I experienced my first truly rambunctious movie-going experience watching a film called Independence Day. (Or ID4 as we '90s kids tend to refer to it)

I think enough of us at this point have seen the movie to understand how it begins. The discovery of the aliens, the devastating alien attack, and the general sense of hopelessness that the film expertly set up. One of those scenes involves the aliens effortlessly thwarting the counterattack by the humans, leaving one fighter pilot in a thrilling chase through the Grand Canyon trying to escape. The fighter pilot out maneuvers the alien ship forcing it to crash in the Mojave desert. I remember the crowd giving that sequence a loud round of applause. Nothing vocal as of yet. It is quite literally the first moment that we see the humans get some points on the board, albeit a very small victory. Will Smith's character Captain Hiller ejected from his plane and had somewhat of a rough parachute landing...

AND THEN THIS S*** HAPPENED....

Almost every movie director or actor has that moment where they fell in love with "The (insert adjective here) of Cinema"...and this was mine. Captain Hiller welcoming that alien to Earth (or "earf" as it was pronounced in that scene) was the first time that I'd ever seen sold-out movie theater ERUPT with cheers. A flat-out booming noise shook my f****** clothes and drowned out the sound of the beginning of the following scene. In that moment Will Smith was a motherf****** superhero. A deity amongst men in my 14-year-old eyes. Nothing less.

As I grew older I came to realize that that scene wouldn't have had the impact it did on me without the buildup up to that scene. But as a kid? That changes things. Independence Day is in my top 10 favorite movies of all time. Not because of anything it did that other greater science fiction films didn't do. It's a completely sentimental pick. It is impossible for me to not think of that scene and that moment. Will Smith has had quite a number of individual scenes that could be considered as his cinematic apogee, many different people will have many different instances. And all of them are justified. This one just so happens to be mine.

**************

The sentiments that were outwardly being expressed after the slap happened seemed to all lead to the point that Will Smith had ruined his entire career. Like, people were out here thinking that it was over over. People were saying that they'd never see another film of his, They were saying that he should go to jail. Wild s*** like that was just regularly being said about the man. And even at the time it just seemed impossible for him to recover. Mind you, his reputation has taken a gigantic hit, but when it comes to the work... he still is who he is.

There's going to be some rebuilding to do, it seems like people have lost their trust in him, and that is somewhat justified. It was f***** up what he did. And he knows it. Time will only tell if he is still on that a-list 20 million per picture kind of status. But even if he isn't, I have no doubt that the consistency of his work will still be top-class. He's one of the greatest movie stars we've ever had. (Not greatest actor, greatest movie star. There is a difference)

I have faith that over time he will prove that yet again.