Jabari Banks as Will Smith
(Picture: Peacock)Back in 2019, filmmaker Morgan Cooper posted a three-and-a-half minute video on YouTube, reimagining the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as a drama. Gone was the Nineties sitcom style and its chuckling audience; in came moody visuals with a plot exposing the dark underbelly of the original show.
It went viral — more than seven million views on YouTube — and although Cooper never had any concrete plans to turn it into a full-blown production, it’s since been picked up by US streamer Peacock (subsequently secured by Sky over here) and made into a series, with Cooper at the helm and the IRL Will Smith beside him as executive producer.
The bones of the story remain the same — the charismatic teenager Will, talented in the classroom and on the basketball court, gets into trouble in his West Philadelphia home and is shipped off the glitzy Los Angeles neighbourhood of Bel-Air for redemption, living with his well-heeled auntie, uncle and cousins — but this time round, we get to grips with the grit behind it all. That one little fight that meant his mum got scared? Here, it’s a heated confrontation with a local gang leader, which ends up with a gun being pulled and Will getting arrested.
When he arrives on the West Coast, pulling up to the gates of an opulent, sun-soaked mansion, we’re introduced to the same family members we knew from the original… but they’re not quite as we remember them. Uncle Phil (Adrian Holmes) is still involved in the legal world, but this time he’s a stone-cold hunk with an impeccably groomed beard. Cousin Hilary (Coco Jones) is an effusive social media influencer and a dab hand in the kitchen, who seems rather more switched on than her Nineties counterpart, and her younger sister Ashley (Akira Akbar) is a pre-teen worried about climate change. Geoffrey (Jimmy Akingbola), no longer a butler but a “house manager”, is a suave, sometimes surly London geezer with a relentless smize. And by far the biggest change is Carlton (Olly Sholotan), who’s ditched his preppy goofiness and is now sharply dressed with a dash of villainy.
The one who’s changed the least is Will himself, played by newcomer Jabari Banks. As always with this type of reboot, he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t — should he stay true to a beloved character, or try to put his own spin on things and risk alienating viewers of the original? As it turns out, he sticks closer to the source, and makes a valiant effort of resurrecting the loveable charm of his predecessor.
The script can’t help itself from dropping a few self-referential Easter eggs (“You’re from Philly, right? My hood compass is telling me… west?” asks a taxi driver and apparent sociolinguist early on in the first episode, to which Will replies: “Yeah… born and raised”) but it certainly does make good on its pre-release promise of exploring the “gritty” side of the story, covering racism, police brutality, elitism, drugs and more.
That doesn’t make it wholly different from the original, which didn’t shy away from similar topics, but the biggest change is that the original did it with the help of comedy, whereas this one goes without much humour at all. That’s fine, but it means the scriptwriting has to be superb, and too often here, things fall flat — plot lines are too predictable, character motivations are slightly questionable, and the dialogue can be a bit too expositional. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its affecting moments, but it’s hard to ignore the clumsier moments.
Maybe it’s the curse of the reboot — will you ever be able to overcome comparisons to something that’s been gathering affection for decades? It’s not impossible, but it seems in this case, the original Fresh Prince is safe on its throne.
