Bright
Well this was an interesting one.
Will Smith does an original movie on Netflix. I’m not sure if that means Will fell off or Netflix is that big. I’m going for the latter.
David Ayer who directed Smith in the ill conceived Suicide Squad gets an attempt at redemption in the film Bright. It looks like a sequel to Alien Nation, but instead of Aliens moving to LA, Bright takes place in a world where Orcs and Elves are not myth or fantasy and they coincide with the rest of the human race, technically making this a Fantasy film not a Science fiction film.
The mythical creatures literally become the new black, as the story is about the first of the orcs, who are considered as low as animals by humans, Jakoby, becoming a cop and nobody or the force wanting an orc there. Will Smith plays Ward who is force to be Jakoby’s partner on the streets. He feels the same hatred but has some reasoning as Jakoby is a rookie who almost got him killed.
Bright is a lot like X-Men, using a fictional race of people to talk about intolerance. In someways your hoping the fictional preference can open people’s eyes about how useless hate is, but if you are already black, gay or Muslim you already know too well what Jakoby is going through.
This makes Will Smith’s Ward a complex character being a man who has possibly at one point in his life experience the type of hate his partner and the orc race has to go through, yet it does not excuse the fact that he needs to rely on his partner when the chips are down and they are running for their lives from the bad guys in this buddy cop feature.
Bright delivers an interesting realm. It’s not like Lord of the Rings, the world of fantasy comes into the reality of the streets of LA. A world with mystical creatures is a world with Magic and a world where everybody from all the races are willing to do very bad things in order to get magic. In this case the magic comes in the form of a wound that only a select few called Brights can wield without it blowing them up.
Love David Ayer’s style of using songs as composed music for certain sequences, especially in this movie. He can be overkill at times but it does work In Blight far better. Taking Suicide Squad out of the picture, if you are a fan of End of Watch and Sabotage, Than you’ll like Bright as that’s the Ayer style being fitted for this film.
Will Smith brings his amazing personality to the Netflix original, but possibly more impressive is Joel Edgerton who has to bring all that personality and project it with all that make up.
It’s a good action thriller and a good police drama (With a fantasy element), you’ll like it far better if you are a fan of gritty crime stories set in LA.
One of Netflix’s best.
