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ENTITY exposes the truth about Will Smith's movie reviewers.Will Smith

Will Smith’s latest movie, “Collateral Beauty,” was pummeled this past weekend, with the former box office champ facing a career low opening of only $7 million.

The star-studded cast – including Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Helen Mirren to name a few – failed to charm audiences. Critics didn’t exactly help matters either.

“A schoolyard assault,” is how the reviews were described by a source close to the production, according to  Deadline. But “Collateral Beauty” is not the only film to have recently suffered from such a response.

“Passengers” was also panned, as Vulture reported, and it’d be hard to forget the way that “Suicide Squad” was skewered. Tough year for Smith though as he starred in both “Suicide Squad” and “Collateral Beauty.” 

READ MORE: Jada Pinkett Smith and Gisele Bündchen Share the Love

So are sharp-tongued reviewers tanking the film industry? Perhaps. Reviews generally won’t hurt an opening weekend, as heavily marketed films often see thousands of ticket sales leading up to the premiere, aka before any reviews are released. However, a data analysis by Metacritic showed that “bad” movies tended to fizzle out quite quickly, while films bolstered by good reviews could continue to attract audiences. 

For example, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” was highly anticipated, and made over $160 million opening weekend. However, it saw a steep 69 percent drop in ticket sales for its second weekend following poisonous reviews.

“Collateral Beauty”  follows Smith as a New York ad exec who writes letters to Death, Time, and Love while struggling to move on after the death of his daughter. The letters, which appeared to have just been a therapeutic exercise, take on real life, as the concepts materialize as people looking to have heart-to-hearts with Smith’s character.

However, it is slightly less magical than the trailer would suggest, as (SPOILER ALERT – skip to the next sentence now to avoid a plot twist)  Smith’s character is only visited by such concepts because his horrible co-workers hire actors to play them in an effort to prove the loss has made him unstable so they can take over his company.

So the cruel plot and heavy subject matter (loss of a child) could have been factors in the box office failure. After all, nobody wants to cry at Christmas. But the no-holds-barred and unforgiving nature of the film’s reviews still seem a bit harsh.

It’s often as brooding, pensive and ‘profound’ as a sophomore philosophy major, and it only insists upon itself more from there,” The Playlist wrote. And Rolling Stone blasted the film, too, writing, “It’s near impossible to make a movie with no redeeming features – but damned if “Collateral Beauty” doesn’t hit the zero-stars jackpot.”

A dramatic, standalone film like “Collateral Beauty” likely wouldn’t have the built-in fan base of a superhero flick, and therefore wouldn’t have been bolstered by critic-proof big advanced ticket sales. Hence its dismal opening numbers.

In the summer, Smith even commented on the changing  tides of the industry, saying at a Cannes Lions marketing session that “the power has gone away from the marketers.”

“Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s you had a piece of crap movie, you put a trailer with a lot of explosions and it was Wednesday before people knew your movie was s—t,” Smith lamented, adding, “But now what happens is 10 minutes into the movie people are tweeting, ‘This is s—t. Go see Vin Diesel!’”

It’s hard to argue with his point. And seeing as there are so many more streaming options these days – iTunes, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix – it stands to reason that a movie would need to be pretty good to get someone out of their house… and willing to shell out $16 for the theater experience.

Therefore, reviewers seemingly have more power than ever. And that begs the question – are they just being bullies? Yes, “Suicide Squad” was bad. But was it one of the worst movies ever? Probably not. 

READ MORE: Margot Robbie Reaps the Rewards of ‘Suicide Squad,’ IMDb’s Top Movie of 2016

It’s highly doubtful that films these days have gotten as bad as reviewers are writing. It seems critics have been watching “Gilmore Girls” and taken  the Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) approach to reviewing, criticizing to entertaining result, but without any heart. Like, be honest if the ballet sucked, but did you really have to compare the dancer to a hippo?

On that note, “Collateral Beauty” may not be the moving, emotional release the trailer advertises, but it’s probably not a dancing hippo. So, sure, it’s fun to join the mean girls at the lunch table, giggling as Vanity Fair calls “Suicide Squad” a “dull chore steeped in flaccid machismo, a shapeless, poorly edited trudge that adds some mildly appalling sexism and even a soupçon of racism to its abundant, hideously timed gun worship.” But maybe don’t let the review shape your moviegoing experience.

Just see what you want to see, and if “Suicide Squad,” “Passengers” and “Collateral Beauty” turn out not to be your thing anyway, then, well, perhaps you didn’t miss much.  But remember, the Jim Henson helmed, David Bowie-led masterpiece that is “Labyrinth” was a box office failure when it debuted in 1986 – so that just goes to show you can’t always trust reviews anyway.

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