Will Smith has been, for the past two decades, a staple of American pop culture and has gradually become one of its foremost icons. In an illustrious career that spans music, television and film, he has left shining foot prints in places that are perhaps out of reach to a majority.

 

He was only a high school student when he and friend Jeff Townes released the hit single Girls Ain’t Nothing but Trouble under the moniker DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.  The success of the single led to a record deal with Jive records. The two sold millions of copies and became international stars. They even won a Grammy and it highlighted their careers as the first rap acts to ever do so.

 

Then there was the early 90’s. Iconic producer Quincy Jones approached a young Mr. Smith about the possibility of starring in a sitcom for NBC. The sitcom in question was The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air which ran for six seasons, averaged about fourteen million viewers a week and made Mr. Smith a household name. During that time, he decided to pursue a film career. His role as a con artist in the critically hailed Six Degrees of Separation revealed his depth as a serious, dramatic actor. By the final season of the series, he had already starred in five films, including the box office successes Bad Boyz and Independence Day.

 

His subsequent roles in Men in Black, Enemy of the State, Wild Wild West and his solo recording career during which he released Big Willy Style and Willennium did nothing less than catapult him into the stratosphere of superstardom, cementing his reputation as an A list celebrity. Big Willy Style spawned a #1 hit, and with about fifteen million copies sold globally, it is one of Hip Hop’s highest selling albums.

 

So as of today, Will Smith is only one of two rappers to ever be nominated for an Oscar, the other being Queen Latifah for her role in the musical Chicago. As a rap artist, he has sold more than twenty million records. He has twelve films which have all made more than a hundred million dollars at the box office and eight of them, from Men in Black II to Hancock, did so consecutively. On a worldwide scale, his films have raked in more than five billion dollars and that’s not including DVD sales and rentals. This is a feat that far surpasses anything Clark Gable or John Wayne has accomplished in their respective careers. Current Hollywood pretty boys like Matt Damon and Brad Pitt do not come close to the caliber of Mr. Smith. To sum it up simply, Mr. Smith is not only the biggest star of his time, no; Mr. Smith is hands down the biggest celebrity in Hollywood history so far. He is now in his prime and it would be another while before anyone else comes along that measure up to his caliber.

 

Alas, for all his groundbreaking box office successes, the average Will Smith film has come to symbolize standard Hollywood mediocrity. Most of his films, lacking in intelligence and creativity, are unbelievably silly and downright insulting. They do nothing but make a mockery of filmmaking itself. From Bad Boyz to the recent Seven Pounds, one can find in the majority of them the same overdone and overused themes. Planet Earth is always facing some imminent disaster and Mr. Smith always turns out to be the lone hero who carries the plight of a helpless humanity on his broad shoulders. This is the case for Independence Day, Men in Black, Men in Black II. When the imminent threat is not from the unknown universe, it happens to be some man made invention that turns monstrous and threatens the human race yet again, and yet again it is Will Smith who prevents doom. Wild Wild West, I Robot, I Am Legend are such stellar examples. He is also a superhero in Hancock, albeit a drunken one, who this time must really save humanity from no one other than himself as he reduces everything he touches to ruble.

 

Whatever means Mr. Smith uses to save the beloved planet always include rampant destruction of highways and other public property, very loud explosions, endless high speed car chases that cause innumerable crashes and the sort of insane gun battles that give World War II vets a good run for their money. It is true that the moviegoer is to put his state of disbelief in suspension when watching a film, but allowing one’s self to swallow a plot of a Will Smith movie just might damage the brain. Take Bad Boyz II for example, in which Will Smith and Martin Lawrence invade the island of Cuba with their eyes closed, as if it was a walk in the park, taking down half the army along the way. Ah, never mind that subsequent U.S administrations have tried overtaking Cuba and failing miserably. In the comedy Hitch, he just so happens to be a dude who has intricate knowledge of any woman’s way of thinking and so goes quite the distance in helping any male to forge lasting and happy relationships with the woman of his choosing. And there is the overtly melodramatic and pretentious Seven Pounds in which he sets out to save or change the lives of people he likes; alas, the film is muddled with a subplot here, a subplot there, and a cacophony of characters that come and go without adding anything to the story that the film soon becomes an experiment of torture.

 

In all these mentioned films, one will be hard pressed to find any character that is fully developed or a well written, carefully thought out story. They are filled with laughable one liners and real cheesy dialogue. Furthermore, in these same films, it’s always the same Will Smith who shows up. The Will Smith who blows cars up in Bad Boyz is the Will Smith that charms women in Hitch. Meaning he is always simply playing himself and never bothers getting into character. One can imagine that perhaps Mr. Smith does try getting into character only to be taken to the side by an upset director who tells him ‘the hell are you doing Will? You’re acting right now and you’re not paid to act! You’re paid to just be yourself!’ That’s of course one of the main problems with his works. Hollywood has long figured that pop culture is quite taken aback by the charms of Mr. Smith, so the studios figure hiring him to play himself suffices to please audiences. It is quite a miracle that his characters aren’t simply given his very name.

 

The unfortunate thing here is that Will Smith is one heck of a talented actor. His roles in Where the Day Takes You and Six Degrees of Separation make it more than obvious that he can be very much a character actor. He can be convincing. He can shed his identity and totally become the fictitious person he is tasked to play. His Oscar nominated performances for Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness are a testament to his gift as an actor. Even his performance in the forgettable I Am Legend evokes sentiments of empathy. So why doesn’t Mr. Smith do more serious film? There is nothing wrong of course with the action adventure or science fiction genres as long as they are done right. Blade Runner, the Matrix, the Bourne Trilogies are all great examples. So if Mr. Smith wants to only be attached to such films, why not have the filmmakers put some more thought into them? He is wasting his God given talent in these childish productions of his. He has allowed Hollywood to make of him a product. A hot, on demand product at that. But as we all know, products of pop culture often come to pass, for their novelty wears off as the consumers of pop culture, in a never ending quest for satisfaction, always dispenses of the old for the new. They did it to Sylvester Stallone. Jean-Claude Van Damme. Eddie Murphy. Rest assured it can be done to him as well. With sequels in the works for Hancock and Bad Boyz, and a prequel for I AM Legend, it is looking like Mr. Smith intends to continue to blow stuff up while he saves the world for the millionth time.