Bright, or The Movie Sadly Not Titled "Orc Cops"

Rapace is the biggest movie stealer - very strong villain performance, and overall, the movie is straight up a pretty good shadowrun campaign put on screen. I love the little touches that say that there are more and stranger things in the world than just Elves and orcs - the lady in the bar with the nictitating membranes, the dragon flying by in the wide shot at one point.

I do wonder exactly how Nick wound up on the LA police force - So, he is an assimilationist, sure. Descended from other round-teeth. Why, the heck would he join a department this blatantly corrupt? Did he get transferred in from a more upstanding police department? Because his entire attitude to the badge only makes sense if he has been exposed to cops who are worth their salt at some point.

I've read a lot of reviews praising Rapace but I honestly struggle to see why. She does her best, but her character is a Living Macguffin with no substance for the movie's entire runtime. Even when she actually starts talking to people about 2/3s of the movie in, she only serves as a Ms. Exposition and never really gets to shine.

The strongest performance of the film is probably Joe Edgerton, who Took the Bad Film Seriously.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Being fair, the actress tried to hint at a character even while being out of focus most of the time.

I think that describes the "main" female character (main in quotes because, as you notice, the character is barely developed) more than Rapace's.

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV

I actually got the two character's confused and thought Rapace played the main character. Fortunately for me, my criticism still stands.

Rapace brings a lot of menace and threat but the script doesn't really do her any favors. She's a very Generic Doomsday Villain kind of villain.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Yeah, I agree then.

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV

Thirded. Villain was scary, but had no motives, no personality, no backstory, no nuance. Forgettable.

Cool popcorn flick, but no staying power to it. Doesn't have anything of substance to say. Lots of style, though. The setting is memorable. Good Urban Fantasy.

Would have been an awesome Shadowrun campaign, though.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Got through watching the movie and . . . mixed about it.

I say a lot of my thoughts on the movie are pretty similar to Gaon's opinions, but here are the pros and con I give the film.

Pros:

• It has a great premise as it is basically what would Middle Earth would be like years later into our time period. The first act of the movie did a good job at establishing the societal structure where basically Elves are first class citizens (of course) with so much privilage they have (mostly for literally being genetically superior to everybody and being able to wield fucking magic), Orcs are lower class who are stuck doing menial labor/crime due to siding with this dark lord, and the humans are the middle/working class who don't have all the priviages like the elves but view orcs in a very disdainful light. There's also seem to be other creatures like lizardmen (not seen in the film but there is a stop sign which implies they are a race) and fairies (who are more like pest than an actual race . . . I'll get to that later).
• The effects for the movie are very good from the costume designs for the Orcs and Elves in the movie (all practical of course) to some of its CGI work through the use of magic and fairies.
• The Buddy Buddy Cop aspect of the film is good, as Ward (Will Smith) and Jakoby (Joel Edgerton) are the part of the movie. Showing off my clear bias towards orcs, Jakoby is definitely a character I can definitely relate with from his Adorkable personality to his overall Incorruptible Pure Pureness personality. I also like Ward for being flawed but overall good character as he is the gruff experienced by the book cop who showcases some inner prejudice towards orcs. They have a good dynamic which actually make this movie succeed as a cop film.

So So

• The acting range from great (like Joel Edgerton's performance, especially in that scene when he emotionally explain to Ward about the suspect he helped let go to cringe worthy (like those two FBI agents). It's basically all over the place in this film.
• Its urban fantasy story is . . . okay. It does the whole heroes journey with Ward and Jakoby taking Tikka and the wand to some kind of safe zone away from opposing forces including human gangs/army wanting the magic for themselves, dogmatic orcs who want it to fulfill some prophecy and a renegade group of elves who want to use said magic to their benefits. That's all good, but unfortunately the film didn't really help define the main antagonist motives; which does make them genric in comparisson to the side antagonists. Also, not enough magic is used in the movie: 4/10.

Cons:

• Just like Suicide Squad, David Ayer filming of certain action scenes are a lot to be desire as it is hard to see. Hell, the only good ones are the ones with the wand is involved as showcase of magic in said scenes are spectacular (plus I can actually see shit).
• Max Landis, proving himself as a controversial screenwriter, really produced a clumsy script in the end. The. Its funny how 2 years ago he said this movie is going to be the next Star Wars, when the film barely can be the next Guardians of the Galaxy (I'll get to that soon).
• Adding to clumsiness in its script is how it handles its racism allegory. The first act did good at establishing this societal class system regards the race relations. However once it left the first act, its theme just fucked up. Besides the previously mention one flaw to Jakoby character basically only being in the police force to atone for his people's mistake, I would say the film didn't really take advantage of said allegories. Considering these orcs are loosely inspired by the Tolkein Orcs, the film could of use the time the Orcs served the Dark Lord as an allegory to slavery and have their hatred towards elves stemming from the time they served said elf warlord as mindless pawns and their hatred towards humans because they slaughter many of their people who had no choice but to serve the Dark Lord. And it could have worked in the whole elves supperiority over all other races more by applying it as the main villains key motivation and maybe use it as a satire on the one percent who take advantage of both the middle and lower class citizens.
• Now one could argue that the movie's theme don't really determine the overall quality of the film if its not the vocal point, to which I agree . . . too bad this movie's themes are not only clumsily done but also VERY, VERY, NOTICIABLE!!! The movie wants us to know that racism is bad with its portrayal of the cops in the movie (all human), classism among the races (namely the elves in general) and obvious parrallels orcs are to black people. But because it couldn't get the message right and it presents this theme all over the movie, it makes the movie come off as some edgy teenager trying to write a story about racism in America to look cool rather than actually talk about the subject (I hate high school me, sure he has some good ideas to work from but all the others are just crap). Subtlety and knowledge of the subject can go a long way; which is why I prefer the manga Beastars over Zootopia. Yes I said it, big whoop, wanna fight about it maggot?
• While watching the movie it is pretty hard to avoid the comparissons to other works that does it better than this. Besides Shadowrun and Alien Nations (which I should check out one day) I thought that it tries to be an urban day Lord of the Rings with the wand being like this film's equivalent to the One Ring. It also attempts at a racism allegory that works like X Men, One Piece, Legion of Super Heroes, Dune, Nightbreed, Zooto- I mean Beastars (fight me on that), and even the Garbage Pail Kids did a better job at it. That "Fairy Lives Doesn't Matter Scene" feels like it would of worked better if Ron Perlman was in that scene dress as the devil and fighting a shit load of fairies. And the films final battle totally ripped off the best scene from Guardians of the Galaxy where Peter grabbed the Power Gem and use it against the main generic doomsday villain played by a talented actor. Oh, shit. Almost forgot about the fact that District 9 is basically what this movie should of been in terms of being an insightful think piece in the guise of a action movie with sci fi elements (but in this case fantasy elements).

So yeah, I wouldn't recommend this film for those who want a film that tackles race relations in America and the class system. I would however still recommend it for being an intresting take on Buddy Cop movies by incorporating a fantasy element in its gritty crime drama. So while wouldn't call it the worst film of 2017 like other critics, it is definitely a disappointing film for me to watch as I expected more out of it.

Don't Judge me, need more views: https://www.deviantart.com/big-k-2011 | https://bigk1337.newgrounds.com/ | https://twitter.com/BigK64133

Two things that aren't in this movie despite people being convinced they are:

• Dragons.
• Backstory of any kind, least of all in the form of Info Dump.

Also, why do I get the feeling that Chicken Tikka was bullshitting everyone throughout the entire movie? Not to get into spoiler territory, but you don't cast a level 5 cleric spell just like that and then pretend you barely had training.

And the entire church scene is janky as fuck. It says a thing, then contradicts it, then goes back, then contradicts it again, about three times in total.

"what the complete, unabridged, 4k ultra HD fuck with bonus features" - Mark Von Lewis

1) I wasn't really expecting dragons of any kind in this film. Though I am curious if there are lizardmen in this universe since the opening of the movie have a stop sign that shows one

2) There was some kind of backstory involving an elf Dark Lord who raised an orc army hundreds of years ago, but was defeated by an alliance of the 7 races. But other than that, the film didn't really explore further as to how this society got the way it is now with the orcs being allowed to integrate with the humans and elves.

Don't Judge me, need more views: https://www.deviantart.com/big-k-2011 | https://bigk1337.newgrounds.com/ | https://twitter.com/BigK64133

There was a dragon flying in the background in a shot of LA around the middle of the film.

I agree with most of that, but I didn't really care for the Buddy Buddy Cop dynamic.

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV

Wasn't the hero who led that alliance an Orc himself?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Not sure. The movie give out bits and pieces of its backstory throughout the film and I only saw this movie once to pay close attention to it.

x2 Well at least you agree with most of my points.

Don't Judge me, need more views: https://www.deviantart.com/big-k-2011 | https://bigk1337.newgrounds.com/ | https://twitter.com/BigK64133

Dan Olson, whose review of David Ayer's previous film Suicide Squad was commended by Ayer himself, weighs in on Bright in this thread.

edited 22nd Dec '17 8:37:58 PM by Tuckerscreator

There is indeed random dragon flying in background of skyshot, its kind of blink and miss moment

Oh. I must have blinked then. But, I noticed the centaur. And I was like "WTF, a centaur?!"

But still, the worldbuilding in this movie is bad, the plot is mediocre and the actors are attempting a Sisyphean task of saving something that can't be saved. Honestly, the world looks very flat and mundane, and the entire fantasy races schtick isn't sold well. Worse yet, it's a movie you can't savage, you can't heckle and certainly can't praise. It's so average it hurts. It kinda tries to be urban fantasy on crack in Johannesburg, but it hardly commits.

And the trio of villains, while creepy in their hardly talking Implacable Man schtick, falls flat in the end. And then, Noomi Rapace opens her mouth and starts spouting absolutely ridiculous shit.

edited 23rd Dec '17 3:21:35 AM by NotSoBadassLongcoat

"what the complete, unabridged, 4k ultra HD fuck with bonus features" - Mark Von Lewis

You forgot tu put Elysium in that list. And maybe also The Expanse.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I do think it works as pop corn flick/Shadowrun campaign movie if you don't think too hard about it Still, I find police brutality uncomfortable in what is essentially mindless action movie

I do think it did have potential regarding world building, but it seems movie really wanted to avoid exposition .-.

Besides that even in mindless sense, its weird how unstoppable bad guys get stopped much easier in finale and I do wonder if it was necessary to have "Oh and Jakoby goes back inside to save Ward from fire when they were already escaping the burning place" part, felt kind of unnecessary.

edited 23rd Dec '17 3:29:32 AM by SpookyMask

Like I said, the police brutality creeped me out because it was so casual, and the explanation being an absolute half-assed cop-out made it even worse.

Not to mention, a guy who was just a working stiff from a decently integrated minority community turning out to be a homicidal wackadoodle. When you're a routine target of police brutality, you can't just casually off a cop, particularly one that saved your own son from getting framed for attempted murder of another cop. That made no sense, even considering that the cop in question got chased right through your block party by a bunch of Surenos and a pack of elven cultists.

"what the complete, unabridged, 4k ultra HD fuck with bonus features" - Mark Von Lewis

I'll admit, that bit was stupid.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

In semi-related news, the screenwriter, Max Landis, is being accused of sexual assault.

Wow . Bet Netflix is glad Landis claimed they totally rewrote his script now.

You know what? That could happen. Landis strikes me as one of those 4chan fratboys who could get uncomfortably gropey, then try to pass it off as a joke.

And worse yet, he's a hack. His work is shallow and hardly funny.

"what the complete, unabridged, 4k ultra HD fuck with bonus features" - Mark Von Lewis

The film currently has a 90% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Is it or just me, or is Netflix pandering to the Lowest Common Denominator?

edited 23rd Dec '17 4:41:52 PM by AnonymousBosch

Not everyone who watches Netflix has a RT account, but does (by default) have a Netflix account — It's times like these where I miss the Netflix star system, as you could damn-near bet that after a movie/show finishes, the viewer was going to give it a rating at the end. As such, you were more likely to get an unbiased view of what audience reactions were to any given film. There used to be a lot of film Netflix recommend in my feed which got 2 stars or less which i'd just steer clear of, and since they've done away with that I have unfortunately stumbled upon more stinkers than i'd like to count, just because they have a "96% chance you'd watch rating" as opposed to a general score.

Why did they get rid of the star system, anyway? Was there a series that they were banking on that started getting poor reviews?

And before you say anything, yes, I'm thinking of Iron Fist.

Oh God! Natural light!