Will Smith: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

4. Agent J - Men In Black III

Though his first performance as Agent J was great, Smith was still very wet behind the ears, and he was very much playing the younger side of the central dynamic, which comes with very different requirements. He was given licence to be cocky and arrogant and protected by his charisma and the freshness of youth, but the emotional weight was notably absent. That changed in the third Men In Black film, which replaced the grotesquely out-of-sorts "comedy" of the second film with a great story, a strong script and good cast additions. It also added weight where it hadn't existed before, exploring J's back-story and explaining the relationship between J and K that was utterly irresistible and disarmingly heart-breaking. In the third film, Smith is far more mature, and brings more of his leading man presence, and it enriches a performance that could have been seen as a fatal over-extension of the franchise.