I can't stop thinking about the idea of how far this movie could have gone if not for... It's a good movie with an easy out if it does bad thanks to its star Will Smith. Smith plays Peter, A Haitian born god fairing man who spent most of his life as a slave, and defying the words of Kayne West, and proving that knowledge is power and ignorance is not always bliss, when Peter receives the knowledge that slavery is now his choice (due to overhearing that Lincoln freed him but his master was gonna tell him that) he makes the right one, which triggers the events of this movie. Based on a true story of a slave, turned buffalo soldier whose image of his back is possibly one of the earliest times a picture was used to spread a campaign to a mass amount of people, the film is formulated like a blockbuster about slavery. It seems to be a strange flavor to fill a blockbuster jar but you can't help it when you have the shooting star trying his best not to fall, Smith all up in this movie. You barely would know if anyone else was in the film as the camera focus on Will the whole time. Emancipation hits or misses with Smith so dynamically that it was obvious that he was going out for an Oscar that he surely won't get, which is too bad cause if he got one for King Richard, his performance here was even better. While Ben Foster as the evil white Master was haunting enough, the only other true star in the picture was director Antone Foqua who made a movie so visually stunning with what seem like so little. His camera action as he featuring the scenery of the swamp was amazing. I did love this movie. Always hard to swallow those films about those "good old days", but it was filled with suspenseful action, and of course if you still love Will, this will work for you.

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