As an avowed fan of The Matrix franchise, one of my favorite fun facts about the production of the era-defining cyberpunk film is that Will Smith was originally approached to star as Neo before passing on the offer. The rest is history… but not for Will Smith! It’s one of the two career choices that weighs on his mind (y’know the other one). So much so that the Oscar-winning actor released a music video on Thursday of him striking kung-fu poses and playing as Neo along with his good buddy, Detroit rapper Big Sean. Having watched the video myself, I feel comfortable saying that movie-going audiences in 1999 dodged a bullet.
The video, titled “Beautiful Scars feat. OBanga,” opens with Smith reenacting the iconic “red pill, blue pill” scene from the first Matrix movie, with Big Sean filling in for the role of Morpheus. It’s mostly played for laughs, with Big Sean obliquely poking fun at Smith slapping Chris Rock at the 94th Academy Awards and Smith choosing to swallow both pills rather than make a binary decision. The rest is Smith and Sean fighting in a dojo, dodging bullets, driving around a Jeep Grand Wagoneer on the highway. It’s like the music video equivalent of a mid-life crisis.
If you think that’s weird, wait until you check out the credits! The video was directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the directing duo behind 2020’s Bad Boys For Life and 2024’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die, and features product placement for Chilli Beans sunglasses, automobile manufacture Stellantis, and the digital comic platform Webtoons. Now, what does Webtoons have to do with this music video, you might ask? Well, the logo for the company pops up on a television screen at the end of the video… and that’s that!
