Tough call. His time on screen had seemed to consistently drop for several years. In hindsight, even his Between Two Ferns appearance back in 2010 is kind of haunting. The thing is, I largely stopped watching his performances as they fell out of mainstream viewing. The last one I stumbled across was Cosmic Sin from 2021, and honestly I would believe everyone in that film was being fed lines and didn’t know what they were doing.
Last film I remotely enjoyed with him in any kind of significant role was probably Glass in 2019.
This right here is the crux of it. “Begs the question” is only ever used in place of “raises the question” by people trying to sound smart, but ironically achieving the exact opposite of that.
I rewatched this and thought it was still really good! He clearly had his faculties when he delivered the monologue. We can read dementia into the fake stoic stuff in the first half, but they have a lot of actors respond like that to Zach.
It was bad. While Willis didn’t seem like he was having difficulty saying his lines or “acting” he was definitely not putting his all into it. It’s hard to tell if it was him having brain issues or just bad editing and writing coupled with his infamously short shoot.
Lots of scenes filmed from behind (so actually a stand-in) and lots of bits filmed with him obviously alone. For example, in the beginning there’s a scene of him having an argument with his detective partner as they get into their car, so they staged it so Willis is on one side of the car yelling over the roof, while his partner does the same on the other side as the camera cuts from one side to the other - likely separate days of filming entirely. Mostly though, he’s just not in the movie, per the usual business model.
Interestingly enough, I saw that James Earl Jones did the same with his voice for any future Star Wars projects. I think day before yesterday (?) I saw something about him writing off on AI voice technology to provide his voice for Darth Vader in perpetuity.
Last week, it was widely reported that Willis, in the first deal of its kind, had sold his face to a deepfake company called Deepcake.
However, a spokesperson for the actor told the BBC that he had “no partnership or agreement” with the company.
And a representative of Deepcake said only Willis had the rights to his face.
The tech used in the advert was created by Deepcake, which describes itself as an AI company specializing in deepfakes.
Deepcake told the BBC it had worked closely with Willis’ team on the advert.
“What he definitely did is that he gave us his consent (and a lot of materials) to make his Digital Twin,” they said.
The company says it has a unique library of high-resolution celebrities, influencers and historical figures.
On its website, Deepcake promotes its work with an apparent quote from Mr Willis: "I liked the precision of my character. It’s a great opportunity for me to go back in time.
“The neural network was trained on content of Die Hard and Fifth Element, so my character is similar to the images of that time.”
However, Willis’s agent told the BBC, “Please know that Bruce has no partnership or agreement with this Deepcake company.”
The BBC asked Willis’s agent whether he had ever worked with Deepcake, or whether the quote used by the company was accurate.
The BBC has not yet received a response.
In a statement from Deepcake, the company said reports that it had bought the rights to Bruce Willis’s face were inaccurate.
“The wording about rights is wrong… Bruce couldn’t sell anyone any rights, they are his by default,” a representative for the company said.
I didn’t realize until just now, but it’s the same guy doing these Bruce Willis movies. I can’t imagine any decent human being would drag Willis back onto set after realizing his condition, but this Edward Drake guy has made eight of these movies in the last two years: Breach, Apex, American Siege, Gasoline Alley, Paradise City, and three Detective Knight movies, all with Willis as the supposed lead.
