Bright Netflix Movie Review

Bright (2017)

Watch Bright on Netflix
Written by: Max Landis
Directed by: David Ayer
Starring: Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, Noomi Rapace, Jay Hernandez
Rated: TV-MA

Plot
This supernatural cop thriller features a world where orcs and elves co-exist with humans. Two LAPD cops Daryl Ward (Will Smith) and orc Nick Jacoby (Joel Edgerton) are forced to work together to retrieve a powerful weapon.

Verdict
Bright is what I expected from a big budget Netflix movie. At its core this is an odd couple cop pairing. The supernatural twist provides plenty of intrigue even if the world building is hit or miss. Orcs and elves save what would have been an ordinary and boring cop movie. The attempt to use orcs as a discriminated race or species falls flat as the movie primarily depicts them as stereotypical minorities which is bewildering. It's a great idea with rough execution, but it isn't boring.
Watch it.

Review
I really liked the introduction, letting us know the racial conflict through graffiti. It definitely is better than exposition or a text crawl, and it helps build this world. The world is divided between human, orcs, and elves. There's a heavy racial undertone. In the first few scenes Will Smith's character Ward goes outside and kills a small faerie that's getting into his bird feeder. He proclaims faerie lives don't matter. It's very pointed, but this look at racial injustice through orcs muddles the message when nearly all orcs are depicted as the most common minority stereotypes. Instead of creating a nuanced race that bridges some gaps, this trades one race for another in a less than subtle allegory.

Ward is partnered with the first orc cop, Jacoby played by Joel Edgerton. Jacoby is trying to fit in but Ward is having none of it. This really isn't much different than a typical cop movie aside from the mythology, but that mythology makes all the difference.

The movie manages to spoil itself when Ward and Jacoby encounter a crazy old guy sputtering nonsense. He's talking about chosen ones and prophecy and anyone watching will instantly guess a few plot points that will be revealed at the end. There was no reason for it. Ward and Jacoby then stumble upon a crime scene and a very powerful wand. This starts the chase, with everyone out to get them to acquire the immense power of the wand. Even though the wand will kill most people instantly if you touch it, the majority of people in the movie are willing to risk it.

Bright is an amalgamation of many films, with the chief inspiration going to Alien Nation (read my review). That had a human and alien paired up as cops with aliens treated as second class citizens. Bright is much better than Alien Nation, but that's an extremely low hurdle. There's nothing in Bright we haven't seen before, but the whole is greater than the parts.
The world building doesn't do enough and it has a great blueprint to follow with John Wick (read my review). John Wick did a great job building a world while revealing very little.  

Despite a few disappointments this is entertaining. It's a lot of spectacle. It's not Netflix's best original movie, but it is their best action movie. It feels like a movie that could have had a wide release in theaters. Netflix out bid big studios. They do plan to create a Bright franchise, with a sequel already announced. Smith, Edgerton, and director David Ayer are all set to return.

We were told early on about how rare it is to find a person that can wield the wand and not die. I wondered if this was going to trip into going exactly where I suspected and it does which is disappointing. It's not a big payoff, it's an easy out.
If anything, Bright resolves too much, neatly undoing any big consequences and fixing the character's major problems. I didn't mind the ending with Ward and Jacoby covering up what happened, though Jacoby seemed a little too talkative. It stretched the believably of the character just to make a joke.

I have to wonder about this magic wand, if you wear gloves would you be okay? If you aren't a chosen one, holding the wand will disintegrate you, but the characters are able to carry it in a bag throughout the movie. That's how this movie operates, broad picture over little details.