Review of Bright (2017) by Joakim L — 29 Dec 2017

I'm not much of a fan of David Ayer's work but I did like Street Kings and the movie The Fast and the Furious that he wrote. But for some reason, I had to same kind of vibe like I did with Street Kings and The Fast and the Furious. Which is the feeling of being at the edge of your seat later in the story until the very end. You can't blame Will Smith for being in this movie but I guess you can say that his usual good performance is what redeems this film to be good. That's the problem about this movie is that it's just good. This one focus entirely on the action and there's only some brief information about why the wand is important and the typical build up on the super villain whom they call him The Dark Lord. Supposedly there are three wands and you only see one in this movie. A lot of things happen in this movie and a lot of them are brief moments. We do get those moments where we can get the idea of what's going on with the story overall. Orcs, elves, and other mythical creatures are co-existing with the humans but not much of the lore you can get any of it out of, except for the fact that they are living among us in public. I wish there was more about the wands and why at this very moment in this very particular movie that we have seem to witnessed a great event unfolding as two cops trying to get by with all the mess.

Now I don't understand why this is being bombed by many critics and what not but this movie ain't that bad and it's holds as a blockbuster film. Of course, for a Netflix original movie. Joel Edgerton's performance as a friendly, boy scout attitude orc was pretty good I think. Give him a partner named Daryl Ward and you get an interesting buddy cop chemistry that you think you've seen before but this time it's between an orc and a human.

My gripe about this movie is that it was more of an action movie than trying to give out as much info about the wands, the races, the dark lord, inferni, shield of light and all that jazz. I just want to know why all this? Why the prophecy? What is the purpose of all this? If this movie was going to be just a standalone and not come up with more movies to fill in all the holes of the story then then it would suck to let a potential story go to a waste.

However, I did enjoy the movie. The discrimination from the orcs, elves being so ridiculously rich, fairies being treated as pests, but no other mythical creatures to see unless you count a couple that was spotted along the way. Will Smith's character being a huge asshole throughout the movie was an interesting portrayal. I feel like I've seen him done this before but it somehow kind of fresh in this movie. Joel Edgerton being the good cop while struggling the life of a shit society, just because he's an orc was also interesting as well.

If a sequel is to happen then I'm all up for it. I'll watch it for sure. A lot of actors I recognize in this movie where they end up being the opposite of being "good" but they did it so well. Veronica Ngo is one of them. Seeing her in a more extensive role without dialogue is yet another good performance. At least to me. Her role in Star Wars The Last Jedi, was no doubt, had me eyeing on her as becoming another one of my favorite actresses.

Bright is a blockbuster type of film but I hope we get more out of what we've got so far. While the action is good, the characters are well done, but I wish the story was a little more deep.