[Applause] Captain Midnight. [Applause] So, I wasn’t sure how many people were paying attention to Will Smith’s return to music. Turns out maybe a lot more of you than I thought. His new song, Pretty Girls, is getting a lot of views and is also being roundly mocked online and even in its comment section. And look, I have made two videos now talking about Will Smith’s career. And I made those videos not to mock him, but because I really like him as an actor and have considered myself a fan since like fifth

grade watching endless episodes of the Fresh Prince on Nick at Night. So, I wanted to jump back into the world of Will Smith and where I’d like to see his work go from here because I think it’s clear that the 2020s have been kind of an uphill battle for his career for obvious and often very self-imposed reasons. But I would very earnestly like to see him turn that around. So, let’s take a look at where things stand now and what could change. Before I do, thanks to everyone who subscribed. I

know the Fallon videos seem to be bringing in a lot of new people lately. So, if you have suggestions for what you’d like to see covered, let me know in the comments below. I’m always happy to read them. Meet Oscar. In Shark Tail the game, there are 25 enormous levels where you can But all right, pretty girls. So, I saw this basically right when it went up before there was any big online backlash to it. And I mean, yeah, it’s it’s not very good. Now, I’m not going to pretend to be Anthony Fantano

here. If you’re looking for takes on how this song fits into the contemporary landscape of hip-hop, uh, you’re not really going to find them. But I will say when I first heard the song, I just thought it was a corny attempt to recapture the kind of fun feel-good dance songs he had success with with like Switch, which you know is also a really corny song, but I enjoy it a lot more. But this one is a little different. It seems to be riding this strange line where it wants to be horny while maybe being the single least horny

song I’ve ever heard. Uh, like I said, it’s not very good. I’m not going to spend this whole video on Pretty Girls because I don’t find it that interesting, but it does seem like an attempt to hold on to something and recapture the kind of fun lowstakes hits he’s had in the past like Miami. His Magnum Opus there is definitely Summertime. And if I had one big criticism of Pretty Girls that goes beyond the surface level of this just being kind of an embarrassing music video to make it 56 years old, it’s that

it lacks any of Summertime’s sense of specificity. That song effectively paints a vivid picture and a real sense of place, which really helps out those great vibes in a way that something more generic like this just can’t manage. But really, Pretty Girls is maybe the least interesting of his recent music videos. He has this really odd video for Interior Barberhop, uh, which he plays a bunch of different characters, all weighing in on the state of his own career, none of whom will bash him to

his face. Uh, and this is a much more interesting document. Same with his song with Big Shawn, uh, which sees the pair in a recreation of The Matrix, a movie that Smith famously turned down. Speaking of turning things down, lost in this discussion around Pretty Girls, was an interview where he talked about his regrets about Inception, which he was apparently offered and did not do. I’m assuming he was offered the Leo role, which I think clearly would have been huge for him. When I look at all these

interviews he’s doing lately and consider it alongside this recent album cycle, which feels a bit defensive in songs like Interior Barberhop and trying to remind us all what we liked about him with Pretty Girls, which let’s be honest, feels like a past it sell by Date holdover from his Fresh Prince persona. It paints a picture, at least to me, of an artist that’s trying to figure out where he fits into this current landscape. And here’s the thing, it’s not like people have totally turned

their back on his movies. They haven’t. The Bad Boys series stuck with Smith after the embarrassment that was, you know, the incident, and it paid off big for them. Bad Boys Ride or Die was a solid hit on a large, if not superheroesized budget, so he still has a franchise going strong, and that’s extremely hard to come by in Hollywood. Something that comes up in every Will Smith video I make is how safe he seems to play it with the roles he chooses and how frustrating that can be. Now, The

Matrix and Django Unchained were the big examples back then. But honestly, I think both of those are understandable to pass on, at least on some level. Like, Matrix was from two new directors that only had one movie under their belt doing something super ambitious on a scale they’d never done before. Django Unchained is just a very hard-edged and abrasive movie for Smith. And honestly, I totally respect if he just wasn’t comfortable with that kind of material. But Inception, like really, I found this

way more embarrassing than a bad music video. Like, if he is completely on the level about this and he had the opportunity to say yes to Inception, a Chris Nolan movie, who is coming off of The Dark Knight at the time, that’s just baffling to me. Now, Smith has said that movies like The Matrix and Inception don’t pitch well. And I can see that being the case. They’re not as straightforward as your average summer blockbuster, but at a certain point, it’s like, why not just trust Chris

Nolan to know what he’s doing? And I get that that’s a bit of a risk, but I don’t see how it’s a bigger one than agreeing to do seven pounds. I don’t want to make it sound like Will Smith has avoided working with great directors his whole career. That’s not the case. He’s not in my favorite Michael Man or Ang Lee movies, but he has worked with them. But I think it is true and confirmed by his memoir, Will, that he has very set elements he wants in place before he signs on to a project. Now, I’ve gone

over this in the past, so I won’t linger on it too much here. I will say though, I think it’s something that has to change. Like, sure, if there’s a good script for Bad Boys 5 on the table, do that. But at the same time, I think he just has to lean into taking some stranger roles, too. Take a look at Dwayne Johnson. I know, I know people love to bash The Rock and say he plays the same character in every movie, and they’re often right about that. To be clear, I like Will Smith as an actor a

lot more. But when two big movies that Johnson had really been banking on underperformed, Black Atom and Red One, it became clear that something needed to change. And to The Rock’s credit, I think his next movie is The Smashing Machine. a pretty interesting looking biopic of a troubled MMA fighter from one of the directors of Uncut Gyms and Good Time. It’s too early to say if this will be a great movie, but I think it’s a sign that Dwayne Johnson is comfortable with stepping out of his

comfort zone and doing a smaller movie where he’s not playing a guy in a jungle explorer outfit. I think Smith really needs that as well. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like he only does action movies, but the dramas he tends to pick like Concussion and even King Richard tend to be very stylistically safe down the middle. Yeah, I’ll say it. Oscar bait. I’d like to see him pop up in a movie I just never expect Will Smith to agree to be in. But maybe he has such a specific vision for his movie career

that that’s just not possible. Another factor here is what I’d call the William Shatner problem. specifically William Shatner as James T. Kirk in the first Star Trek movie. I won’t go down a whole rabbit hole about this, like you can probably turn to Red Letter Media for that. One thing that’s clear watching that movie is it’s not comfortable acknowledging how much Shatner had aged since the ’60s TV show by the late ‘7s. When you look at these recent music videos and even the new Bad

Boys movies to an extent, I think there’s a tendency as actors age these days to try to just let them play it off like they’re eternally, I don’t know, maybe 36 forever. And yes, that is a lot easier to do now than it was in the ‘7s. But eventually, I think it does catch up to you. And I don’t think it’s something that actors should run away from. And when the next Star Trek movie acknowledged Kirk’s age and built that into the narrative with Wrath of Khan, it worked incredibly well and helped

kickstart a successful new era of Shatner’s career. Because Star Trek 2 didn’t try to deny what was plain for the audience to see, that time had gone by since 1968, and that had an impact on who Kirk was as a character and who Shatner was as an on-screen presence. Obviously, this is not a onetoone comparison or anything, but I think Will Smith needs a great movie that does something similar. It doesn’t have to abandon his on-screen movie star persona, but I do think it has to be updated a little bit. There’s nothing

wrong with aging into the more elder statesman role as an actor. In fact, there’s often a lot of great roles to be found there. Now, to be fair, the recent Bad Boy movies have tried to acknowledge it where they can while keeping the exact same formula intact. And with King Richard, it looked like he was kind of okay going more in that direction. But in a lot of other ways, it just seems like he’s determined to hold on to his 90s and 2000’s persona with an iron grip. Pretty Girls would not have been a

great song in 2001 either, but it would at least feel a little less embarrassing. I don’t mean to sound too harsh. It’s just really strange to watch a video he put out last year, uh, the truth about making music again, where he alludes to all these big changes in his life and his mindset that inspired him to want to make more music and how quote truth started pouring in from all angles and for the result to be songs like this music with really absolutely nothing to say. Like it’s not a huge deal, but it’s

clear, at least so far, that he doesn’t really want to open up about his personal life that much on this album. Beyond songs like Interior Barberhop, which are mostly about his public image. And look, I really try to stick to people’s work and not their personal lives in these videos. It’s just so much of this music seems to be dancing around that stuff without outright confronting it, which I guess is fine. It’s completely his choice to make. But it also makes for a very strange listen as

the songs he’s released so far kind of bounce back and forth between generic love songs, poppy dance music that he’s a little bit too old to pull off, and stuff like Interior Barberhop where he’s acknowledging the slap without giving us any more insight into it. It’s just a really odd mix, and I will be a little surprised if the final release is that wellreceived. I mean, maybe I’ll be wrong. I kind of doubt it, though. In the end, I’m a lot more interested in Will Smith the actor than Will Smith the

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