Opening in select theaters this week before its Dec. 9 streaming premiere on Apple TV+, “Emancipation” is rated R for violence, and for “disturbing images and language.”
Those words also apply to the Will Smith Oscar night incident eight months ago. So. With that out of the way, we can get into Smith’s first post-slap film release, a large, ambitious and, on the surface, seriously intentioned picture about the horrors of slavery amid the Civil War.
Underneath the surface? “Emancipation” lands perilously close to a gamer’s fantasy of enslavement, escape, superheroics and rousing, righteous vengeance, based a tiny bit on the historical record. In other words, director Antoine Fuqua’s film is far closer to the spirit and the pile-driving action beats of Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto” than to Steve McQueen’s superb “12 Years a Slave.”
