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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
15
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
The TimesFeb 15, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The best thing about it is Jabari Banks, who brings his own charisma to the Will Smith role. He is required to turn in a "deeper" performance. Also good are the action scenes the basketball games and gang scenes but whether that will be enough for former fans to watch a whole, morally earnest series spinning off a 30-yearold sitcom we'll see.
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RogerEbert.comFeb 10, 2022
Season 1 Review:
It’s one of those shows where characters too often sound like mouthpieces for writers instead of real people. They’re too often explicitly stating their messages instead of conveying dialogue that sounds realistic. But then that starts to shift in episode three. ... If the writing can lean into the characters and let them breathe, “Bel-Air” will work.
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Feb 9, 2022TV Guide MagazineMay 25, 2022
Season 1 Review:
About as fresh as the fourth season of a teen melodrama on The CW, albeit with rougher language. ... Still, it's early days, and whenever Banks pours on Will's charm, one can hope Bel-Air will rediscover some of the original series' sense of fun. [14 - 27 Feb 2022, p.7]
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Feb 9, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The reality of Bel-Air has its moments, especially whenever it stops trying to draw attention to the story’s sitcom roots. But once you take away the nostalgic link to a beloved series from decades past, the end result is just a decent approximation of a CW drama like All-American, which has a very similar culture-clash premise.
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ColliderFeb 22, 2023
Feb 14, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Suck all the joy, exuberance and wondrous charisma out of “The Fresh Prince” — a worthy launchpad for an actor who, in his prime, was widely considered the biggest movie star in the world — and you’re left with the gloomy and plodding “Bel-Air.” ... A suffocating self-seriousness overhangs “Bel-Air.”
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Feb 9, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Especially after the pilot, which Cooper directs with moody flair, all tie-ins to the sitcom feel forced, like Will turning his prep school blazer inside out to cement his status as a fashion plate. Of course, without the Fresh Prince references, Bel-Air is almost entirely humorless, a chilly act of over-compensation.
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