Will Smith’s most controversial film was rightfully panned by critics

We have already published this article in a similar form for the TV broadcast on February 20, 2022.

Will Smith is one of the greatest Hollywood actors. No one doubts his talent, the Oscar nomination for The Pursuit of Happyness was more than deserved. But even if Will Smith is now practicing humility, many critics keep accusing him a certain messiah complex in the choice of roles before. Nowhere is that more evident than in the critical flop Sieben Leben, which is on TV today. Warning, spoilers!

On TV: Will Smith reaps scathing reviews with controversial drama

It’s all about the highly intelligent Ben (Smith) who wants to atone for a tragedy he caused: He killed seven people in a car accident. To atone for this, he comes up with an unconventional plan: he wants to choose seven people for whom he can sacrifice himself because of their good heart. By donating his organs to them.

Check out the trailer for Seven Lives here:

So his brother gets a lung, a dialysis patient gets his kidney, another person gets his bone marrow, blind Ezra (Woody Harrelson) gets his eyes and heart disease Emily (Rosario Dawson), yes, his heart. How to do that without dying? Not at all. Ben commits Suicide by getting in the bath with a poisonous jellyfish. No joke.

The fact that the film’s plot seems absurd is no big deal. But after Smith had already positioned himself so clearly as the messiah of mankind in I Am Legend or Hancock, the glorification of victims with religious parallels was simply too much for many critics. The New York Times’ AOScott, not alone in his opinion (via Metacritic), called it “the most incredible, eye-opening, […] most insanely horrifying film ever made“. And I think his anger is justified.

Because the story is as arrogant as it is stupid. The audience should appreciate the sacrifice of a man playing God. Whoever he likes may live. He looks for his candidates with the 2007 equivalent of Google. This is neither the intelligence nor the humility I expect from a Messiah character.

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In addition, there are a number of moral questions that the film simply ignores with its misguided mallet tragedy. The ethical terms of suicide are not an easy subject, but the film simply ignores the consequences in favor of a perverse adulation of unthinkable ideas.

The silliest thing I can’t help but mention is Ben’s post-mortem donation to pre-determined recipients. There is a reason why this is not possible in reality. This is because otherwise people will simply be skipped in the donation chain and die. If everyone with such arrogance could simply designate recipients because they think they are nice, much more threatened persons would perish as a result.

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And even if parts of Seven Lives (e.g. the achievements of Smith, Harrelson or Dawson) are definitely worth seeing, I can’t get past this point in my assessment. Messiah complex, all right. Abstruse script ideas, ok. But that the movie in his lust for the moral pointing gesture to be so idiotic as to become deeply reprehensible is simply unforgivable. He deserved the controversy doubly and trebly.

When is Seven Lives with Will Smith on TV?

Seven lives perishes this Sunday, August 14, 2022 8:15 p.m. on Sixx. If you don’t have time, you can catch up on the film at 12:50 a.m. It has a duration of 123 minutes without commercials.

Can Will Smith be replaced? The Bel Air reboot podcast

Will Smith’s cult sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has been remastered as a gritty drama series at Peacock. In the stream trawl we discuss whether the series reboot Bel-Air was successful or not.

In the podcast we not only talk about Bel-Air and the ideal Will Smith replacement, but also take a close look at the other original series of the new streaming service Peacock – Girls5Eva, Rutherford Falls and Saved by the Bell.

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What do you think of Seven Lives?