Gemini Man review – Will Smith v Will Smith leaves audience in a coma
This article is more than 4 years old
The digital de-ageing gimmick adds little sprightliness to Ang Lee’s humourless thriller about a government agent on the run
Peter Bradshaw
Friday 4 October 2019
D
igital youthification and deepfakery isthe new frontier in studio movies, taking regular live-action films into a deeper uncanny valley.Martin Scorsese’s The Irishmanfeatures a young-looking Robert De Niro and now comes this very odd, dodgily acted, semi-intentionally bizarre action-thriller directed byAng Leeand written by David Benioff, Billy Ray and Darren Lemke. It stars Will Smith as Brogan, a special-forces assassin who discovers his corrupt government paymasters are harbouring a secret and subsequently finds there is a new and worryingly familiar-looking young assassin in town. It’s a youngster who has, to coin a phrase, started making trouble in the neighbourhood.
August Alsina claims Will Smith sanctioned affair with Jada Pinkett Smith
Tashara Jones
June 30, 2020
Singer August Alsina claims he had a love affair with Jada Pinkett Smith — after her husband, Will Smith, allegedly gave the relationship his blessing.
While reps for Pinkett Smith say Alsina’s claims are “absolutely not true,” he has opened up on the alleged affair in an interview with “The Breakfast Club’s” Angela Yee.
He claims, “I actually sat down with Will and had a conversation due to the transformation from their marriage to life partnership … he gave me his blessing.”
Alsina, 27, was introduced to Pinkett Smith, 48, in 2015 by her son, Jaden. He says the two became very close, even vacationing with the family in Hawaii in 2016 and attending the 2017 BET Awards together.
He claims he fell in love with Pinkett Smith, saying, “I totally gave myself to that relationship for years of my life, and I truly and really, really deeply love and have a ton of love for her. I devoted myself to it, I gave my full self to it — so much so to the point that I can die right now and be okay with knowing that I truly gave myself to somebody.”
“And I really loved a person, I experienced that and I know what that feels like — and some people never get that in this lifetime,” Alsina continued. “I know that I am completely blessed and this conversation is difficult because it is so much, that it would be hard for people to understand but — once it starts to affect me and my livelihood — I have to speak up about my truth.”
Enlarge ImageAugust Alsina, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will SmithGetty
The interview is for Alsina’s new YouTube doc, “StateofEMERGEncy: The Rise of August Alsina,” to promote his new album, “The Product III:stateofEMERGEncy.”
During the interview, Yee asked, “Is it disappointing that she [Pinkett Smith] never addressed it to you, because like you said, you lost out on opportunities?”
“I really can’t even get into the thought of that because I am only responsible for myself, right,” Alsina responded. “And I am only responsible for, you know. What I do. When I am repressing and suppressing things and it starts to affect me. I have to address it. I just always stay solid because I never want to be the person to start confusion.”
New Orleans native Alsina’s 2009 song “Nunya” sparked speculation it was about Pinkett Smith with lines like, “Why is you textin me / Asking who next to me / Why you care about who having sex with me / Now you all on my line, why you pressing me?”
The music video is a display of a text message exchange between Alsina as a Bitmoji and a woman by the name of Koren. Koren is Jada’s middle name.
During the interview, Alsina also revealed, “Contrary to what people may believe, I am not a troublemaker. I don’t like drama. Drama actually makes me nauseous.
“And I also don’t think that it is ever important for people to know what I do, who I sleep with, who I date … but in this instance it is very different because as I said, there are so many people that are side-eyeing me, looking at me questionable [sic].
“I have lost money, friendships, relationships behind it and I think it is because people don’t necessarily know the truth. But I have never done anything wrong.”
He added of the Smith family, “I love those people literally like my family. I don’t have a bad thing to say about them. They are beautiful people.”
RELATED VIDEO
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's secret to 20-plus years of marriage
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's secret to 20-plus years of marriage
We reached out to Pinkett Smith’s representative, who responded, “Absolutely not true!!”
Little is expected now from the once fashionable director of such movies as The Sixth Sense and Signs, and this dystopian SF movie is his most conventional to date.
Will Smith plays a general living in a gleaming new city created in outer space after Earth became uninhabitable. Ordered by his beautiful wife (an ill-served Sophie Okonedo) to bond with their depressed son ("He doesn't need a commanding officer, he needs a father"), Smith takes the lad on a flight to another planet. On the way they run into an interstellar storm, crash-land on the abandoned Earth, and the boy (played by Smith's real-life son, Jaden) must make a hazardous journey to find a beacon that will bring assistance to his injured dad. It's dull stuff, indifferently staged, with heavy-handed references to Moby-Dick.