I would like to congratulate Will Smith on creating a film which trumps "Suicide Squad" as the worst Will Smith movie this year (the best, of course, being "Independence Day 2", where he was a painting) in the form of "Collateral Beauty".
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| There is no way in any timeline that this is not the last thing you see before you die |
Of the six people watching it, I was the youngest there by about 2 World Wars. This emotionally manipulative piece of horseshit has some talented people in it (Helen Mirren, Michael Pena, Kate Winslet, Naomi Harris and Edward Norton to name a few), but the script is something that a secondary school drama student would write as their first screenplay, and it is backed by an orchestral score which begs you feel emotions and tries its very best to tell you how to feel, but lacking in true insanity despite its bizarre premise. In addition, its tonal shift is so jarring and frequent, that it would be like replacing every second scene in "The Odd Couple" with the beach landing scene from "Saving Private Ryan".
I'll try my very best to explain this movie, without swearing, or spilling the beer I had to open.
Will Smith is Howard, an advertising executive whose daughter dies and as a result of his grief becomes the most boring man ever on screen. Seriously, this is Will Smith in "Seven Pounds" mode. Remember that? His awful attempt at "Pursuit of Happiness" Oscar bait? At least that had suicide by jellyfish.
He is like a zombie in his grief, and only plays with dominoes (because SYMBOLISM), so his three "best friends" at the firm (Ed Norton, Kate Winslet and Michael Pena in glasses) decide to try and help, as he controls the majority of the firm and they need him back in business so that he can sell it, to help both them and the employees financially.
You know, cheerful Boxing Day stuff.
They do this not by hiring therapists or counselors, but a P.I to discover that he has been writing letters to "Death, Time and Love", and thus Ed Norton comes up with the BRILLIANT idea of hiring three struggling improv actors (Helen Mirren, Keira Knightly and some guy called Jacob Latimore) to play these parts (Mirren as "Death", Latimore as "Time", Knightly as "Love), confront him about the letters and film it, showing the board that he is mad and thus they can sell the company without him due to his poor state of mind.
You read that correctly. This man's three best friends decide that, when he is struggling with grief and mental illness, they should fuck with him.
To her credit, Keira Knightly is the one who says "Wait, this is fucking awful!", but they go on with the plan, because they are promised twenty grand each to fund their play, though there may be other motives...
Meanwhile, Smith is visiting a group therapy session, but never entering, instead standing outside the window and staring lovingly at Naomi Harris. Ed Norton is becoming distant from his daughter, as he had an affair and she thus claims not to LOVE him anymore (all DEFTLY explained by the subtle line: "Well, it's because you slept with an intern and your wife divorced, you, isn't it?"); Michael Pena is DYING of movie illness but hiding it from his family; and Kate Winslet is desperate to have children from a sperm donor, as she has spent too much TIME on her career.
Take a wild fucking guess as to where this is going.
They also plot to have him yell at Death, Time and Love in public, record it and digitally remove the actors later in a plan so bizarre I cannot count how many ways it is stupid. And I watched "Timecop" yesterday.
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| ABWT: Always. Be. Watching. Timecop |
Thus these three people embark on their plan of fucking with Will Smith (I would have preferred it if this was a dark comedy, but alas...) which Helen Mirren even points out as "like Gaslight, that film" (But gleefully goes ahead with anyway because she's a mad Thespian and... something else), hanging out with these three "concepts" in the street and delivering Hallmark style quotes, some of which I have attempted to commit to memory, because they are gold:
"When it starts with a dead six year old girl, nothing can be good." - Michael Pena
"I am love. I am inside you. And all things. I am the reason for being." - Keira Knightly
"You are dead flesh, dust, you broke my heart." - Will Smith.
There's this big "emotional journey" backed by a really irritating score, cringe-inducing dialogue and Will Smith attempting to show the world that he can act. Look, Will, I love you man, and you can act. But not in this.
There are also two key twists, which I am going to spoil because fuck you:
1. Will Smith finally begins visiting the group therapy sessions, and bonding with Naomi Harris, who also lost a daughter to a rare form of brain cancer. She is his ex wife. It was her kid. They divorced. That is the twist.
2. Death, Time and Love actually ARE Death, Time and Love, which begs the question of WHAT DID THEY DO WITH ALL OF THE MONEY NORTON AND WINSLET PAID THEM?!
Seriously, they make a big deal about paying them each twenty grand to do this (despite Pena's plotline being about needing money for his family after he's gone and this company being on the verge of bankruptcy if this sale does not go ahead), but right at the end of the movie, the three of them watch Smith and Harris from a bridge, then vanish when Naomi Harris looks back. Where did the money go? Ah fuck it...
Suicide Squid is not the most embarrassing thing Will Smith has been in this year, I would at least watch that again, possibly sober, and that had Captain Boomerang. Yes, the Will Smith movie with a crocodile man, Harley Quinn and a character called Captain Fucking Boomerang was LESS embarrassing than this.
7/10
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