after watching the truly excellent first episode of Moon Knight, i watched instead the very much MEH film
King Richard -
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9620288/reference/
Starring Best-Actor Oscar winner Will Smith, it is the story of the Williams family, Serena and Venus - the tennis champions - and their scheming father, Richard.
And Will Smith can't act. No seriously, he can't act. His idea of playing this very-miscast character is to not open his lips when he speaks, and keep his body as still as if he had had a stroke.
EVERYONE in the film is better than Smith. The dialogue saves him, up to a point, and Richard is a .. sort of interesting character. It's not enough to carry a film for well over two hours, and unless you have a particular interest in the subject - the early tennis career of Serena & Venus Williams - you really should go for something better.
Also, the film tries to drive home the point that S&V's success is ALL due to the father's unusual training regime (i.e. to not let them play too early) but it's dubious if this is a point worth making, and if there is any truth to it at all.
.. i'm not sure why someone would watch this. If you are interested in Tennis, there's probably better biopics out there. The sisters are marginal characters that serve more as McGuffins than anything else, the real antagonists of the film are the various promoters, trainers, and various businessmen who want to secure the S&V deal, and, they are not even particularly nefarious.
The acting is .. fine, aside from Will Smith, who is ridiculously wooden. I can think of several black actors who would be faaar better in the role, effin Denny Glover would have been better. The production is good, the direction is okaish, doesn't really take any risks.
I mean, i expect the Oscars to be shit, but surely they could have given the Best Actor award to ANOTHER bad hollywood actor? Idk, Boiling Point, Power of The Dog, some Dune actor, but really they gave it to Will Smith? I honestly believe that the "i want the gun" scene from The Fresh Prince was better than anything i saw today.
6/10 -
i would say "add X points if you are interested in the background of the Williams sisters", but what you got here is a biopic that is mostly fictional. Much better to watch the vastly superior Pursuit Of Happyness which is better in everything.