{"id":8129,"date":"2024-11-11T23:25:14","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8129"},"modified":"2024-11-11T23:25:14","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:25:14","slug":"bright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/11\/bright\/","title":{"rendered":"Bright"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Bright <\/strong>(2017)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Netflix\/Action-Fantasy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 117 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (pervasive language, strong violence, brief nudity, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: David Ayer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Max Landis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Sardy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Roman Vasyanov\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 22, 2017 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, Noomi Rapace, Lucy Fry, Edgar Ramirez, Ike Barinholtz, Happy Anderson, Dawn Oliveri, Matt Gerald, Margaret Cho, Brad William Henke, Jay Hernandez, Veronica Ngo, Alex Meraz, Joseph Piccuirro, Enrique Murciano, Scarlet Spencer, Andrea Navedo, Kenneth Choi, Bobby Naderi.\u00a0 \u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: NO STARS!!!<\/p>\n

\u00a0I can hear the story pitch to Netflix execs now. \u201cWill Smith plays a cop who partners with a mythical creature to save the world from an evil supernatural being. It\u2019s Lethal Weapon meets Lord of the Rings! It\u2019ll be a smash!\u201d It sounds silly when spoken out loud, but terrible when it plays out on screen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bright<\/strong> is easily one of the worst movies of 2017. It might have been the worst if not for the execrable Mummy reboot this past summer. It comes very, VERY close to unseating the Tom Cruise fiasco, but doesn\u2019t quite do it. Still, this is one mother of a bad movie. It\u2019s a blend of a lot of better movies; here\u2019s a list: Lethal Weapon, Alien Nation, District 9, End of Watch (also directed by David Ayer), Lord of the Rings, Men in Black and Judgment Night. Bright<\/strong> might have been better with a lighter touch, but it\u2019s directed with a heavy hand and a mile-long mean streak. Everything about it is just wrong, wrong, WRONG!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Smith plays Daryl Ward, an LAPD officer in an alternate present where humans live and work side-by-side with orcs, elves and other such fantasy creatures. In this world, elves represent the 1% (they\u2019ve taken over Beverly Hills) while the orcs inhabit the lowest echelon of society. Everybody hates orcs; they\u2019re ugly, they\u2019re all criminals and can\u2019t be trusted. Ward is partnered with Nick Jakoby (Edgerton, Midnight Special), the country\u2019s first orc cop, and he doesn\u2019t like it one bit. He hates all the attention, being ostracized by his fellow officers and, most recently, the pressure from Internal Affairs to help them find grounds to fire Jakoby. He\u2019s just back to work after being shot and there\u2019s some question about Jakoby letting the suspected shooter, an orc, get away.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One night, Ward and Jakoby respond to a disturbance call and find a house littered with bodies including the still-living half-body of an elf woman. There\u2019s one survivor, an elf named Tikka (Fry, The Darkness), who has in her possession a magic wand. Only a select few can touch a wand and live; they\u2019re called \u201cBrights\u201d. The wand\u2019s rightful owner is an evil elf named Leilah (Rapace, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) who wants to bring about the return of the Dark Lord or some such nonsense. Others, like an elf agent from the Federal Department of Magic (Ramirez, Joy), would like to get their hands on the wand as well. Some of Ward\u2019s colleagues attempt to kill him and Jakoby and steal the wand for themselves, but he puts them down first. Now he\u2019s on the run with his partner and Tikka.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What\u2019s so tragic about Bright<\/strong> is that it could have worked with a more tongue-in-cheek approach. The premise is admittedly silly. Why not have some fun with it? You know, inject some humor. I mean, you have Smith in the lead, put him to good use. Instead, Ayer takes the same gritty approach he did with 2012\u2019s End of Watch (a great cop drama, btw). He\u2019s so heavy-handed and obvious when it comes to the orcs and their place in society. It\u2019s clear he\u2019s trying to make a statement about our own society with scenes like the one in which cops are seen beating orcs in the street. The public doesn\u2019t want an orc cop because they don\u2019t know where his loyalties lie. Is he a cop first or an orc first? I admit it\u2019s an interesting idea for a movie, but do the makers have to take it so seriously? How seriously can you take a movie that involves magic wands and fantasy creatures?<\/p>\n

\u00a0They have a lot of nerve calling the movie Bright<\/strong>; it\u2019s so dark you can\u2019t see what\u2019s going on most of the time. Maybe it\u2019s for the best. What I could see was positively awful. The makeup effects are terrible. Whoever was responsible did a pretty half-assed job on the orcs. The whole affair is one step up from a community college D&D party. This is Smith\u2019s worst movie since the vile vile mess that was Wild Wild West. We don\u2019t get good-natured, wise-cracking Smith; we get angry, profanity-spewing Smith. One of the first things he does in the movie is try and kill a fairy that\u2019s been flying around outside his house. I guess they\u2019re like garden pests or something. His character follows the usual trajectory when it comes to his relationship with Jakoby, but by the time we get there it doesn\u2019t matter because Smith\u2019s character is so unlikable. Edgerton at least seems to be trying, but to no avail. And why is Rapace wasting her time with this crap? Why are any of them wasting their time? It boggles the mind.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bright<\/strong> is a horrible movie. It\u2019s too long. It\u2019s ugly to look at. It\u2019s unpleasant from start to finish. The screenplay is a mess. It wants to be a fantasy adventure, a gritty urban cop thriller, a buddy comedy and a social commentary. The story elements keep getting in the way of each other, there\u2019s no consistency. It should be mentioned that Bright<\/strong> is a Netflix movie. It isn\u2019t playing in theaters. It cost $90 million to make. If it did play in theaters, it would surely bomb. I doubt it will fare much better on Netflix. Then again, there are a lot of suckers who will order the movie because it stars Will Smith. Don\u2019t be fooled, this isn\u2019t Men in Black IV or Bad Boys III. It\u2019s just bad, man.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bright (2017)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Netflix\/Action-Fantasy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 117 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (pervasive language, strong violence, brief nudity, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: David Ayer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Max Landis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Sardy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Roman Vasyanov\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 22, 2017 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, Noomi Rapace, Lucy Fry, Edgar Ramirez, Ike Barinholtz, Happy Anderson, Dawn Oliveri, Matt Gerald, Margaret Cho, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Bright-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8129"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8294,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8129\/revisions\/8294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}