Critics savage Will Smith’s new film: ‘Irredeemable’

WILL Smith’s schmaltzy new drama Collateral Beauty has a truly bizarre plot — and early reviews say it’s “dumber than a bag of rocks”.

WILL Smith pivots towards serious drama in his latest film — but critics aren’t impressed, judging by the first reviews.

The actor leads an all-star cast including Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Keira Knightley and Edward Norton in Collateral Beauty, the tale of a grieving ad executive who seeks answers from the universe by writing letters to Love, Time, and Death.

As seen in the trailer above, he gets unexpected personal responses to those letters — yes, Love (Keira Knightley), Time (Jacob Latimore) and Death (Mirren) each visit him to teach him some Valuable Lessons.

Smith’s character fosters a very deep and meaningful obsession with setting up dominoes in the film. Picture: Barry Wetcher/Warner Bros. via AP

It’s an odd, unashamedly sentimental concept for a film — and despite the impressive cast list, early reviews out of the US have not been kind. Take a look:

“This horrifyingly yucky, toxically cutesy ensemble dramedy creates a Chernobyl atmosphere of manipulative sentimentality, topped off with an ending which M Night Shyamalan might reject as too ridiculous. At the end of it, I screamed the way polar bears are supposed to when they get their tongues frozen to the ice.” - The Guardian, one star.

“You’ve heard the expression ‘dumber than a bag of rocks’? Well, the bag of rocks sold a screenplay, and I’ve just seen the movie that’s been made from it. It’s called Collateral Beauty, and it’s as deep as an inspirational kitty poster and twice as cutesy.” - Groucho Reviews.

“It’s near impossible to make a movie with no redeeming features — but damned if Collateral Beauty doesn’t hits the zero-stars jackpot.” The movie is “a sinking ship that churns the waters from absurd to zombified with frequent stops at pretentious.” - Rolling Stone, zero stars.

“Smith ... seems fully committed to playing the role of a human frown-face emoji ... A Collateral Mess.” -Entertainment Weekly, C-.

Imagine this casting call. ‘Hey mature-aged actress Helen Mirren, we think you should play death itself’. Picture: Barry Wetcher/Warner Bros. via AP

“Silly high-concept Hollywood grief porn ... Audiences unconcerned about their sugar levels might eat it up.” - The Hollywood Reporter.

“Here’s a promise few movies can make. If you sink two hours into Collateral Beauty now, it’s guaranteed that for the rest of your life, when conversation stalls, you can save the night by asking, ‘Did you ever see that movie where Will Smith plays an ad executive so shut down with grief over the death of his daughter that his business partners hire actors to confront him in public in the roles of Death, Time, and Love, the abstract concepts to whom he has been penning and mailing angry letters?’” - Village Voice.

“It’s amusing for a while, watching these very talented people trying to sell this plot line. But after a while, too many questions take over: Why does Winslet’s character leave sperm-donor brochures out on her desk? Does anyone at this ad agency ever do any work? Did I actually just hear the line ‘Nothing is ever really dead if you look at it right’? Dame Helen, what are you doing in this thing?” -Seattle Times, one-and-a-half stars.

Smith engaged in another action-packed bout of letter-writing. We’re sure those 97 minutes just fly by, folks. Picture: Barry Wetcher/Warner Bros. via AP

“Dead kids, barren women, dementia-addled parents, workaholic dads, secret cancer patients — there isn’t a single character in Collateral Beauty who isn’t an overused stock drama crutch. (It uses cancer twice and Alzheimer’s once, for those of you keeping score at home.)” - Uproxx.

“I still don’t know what ‘collateral beauty’ means.” - Screen Crush, 2/10.

Even fellow actor Samuel L Jackson — who hasn’t seen the film — said in a recent interview that the trailer alone had turned him off the film.

“There are all these ‘Oscar bait’ movies. I was looking at the trailer for this Will Smith movie the other day and I’m like, really? It’s another one of those, ‘Oh my God, life is so wonderful, take time to sniff the roses’,” he said during a rant against movies tailor-made to scoop awards rather than attract audiences.