Bright * / *****
Directed by: David Ayer.
Written by: Max Landis.
Starring: Will Smith (Daryl Ward), Joel Edgerton (Nick Jakoby), Noomi Rapace (Leilah), Lucy Fry (Tikka), Édgar Ramírez (Kandomere), Ike Barinholtz (Gary Harmeyer), Happy Anderson (Montehugh), Kenneth Choi (Agent Coleman).
I’ve defended Netflix for most of 2017, as it certainly seems like the streaming service has taken its lumps from critics and cinephiles who wish that some of their films got theatrical releases, instead of showing up directly onto their website. Sure, films like Okja, Mudbound and The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) would not feel out of place in art house theaters around the country – but I understand that’s not really Netflix’s business model, and say that the problem isn’t that Netflix is putting these films on their site – but that no other studio in town would finance them in the first place. Any studio could have bought Mudbound for instance – but none of them did, except for Netflix. The site has also been a boon to documentaries as well. Sure, I have nits to pick with them – they still haven’t figured out how to make their original movies into events like they have with their TV shows. Sadly, the first real blockbuster Netflix has attempted – that has apparently gotten the views – is the worst Netflix original (of any kind) that I have seen so far. David Ayer’s Bright is a confused and confusing mess of a film, with big writing, bad acting and bad everything else bringing the film down to ridiculous levels.
The film is directed by David Ayer – who before he made last year’s horrible Suicide Squad, had made any number of films about the tough cops of the LAPD – some great (he wrote Training Day and Dark Blue, and wrote and directed End of Watch), some not so great (Sabotage, Harsh Times). With Bright, he has essentially returned to the genre – except in some sort of weird alternate universe, which humans lives alongside orcs and fairies, and other strange creatures. The screenplay, by Max Landis, tries very, very hard to draw racial parallels to the way orcs are treated in this world, and how African Americans are treated in ours (a rather insulting comparison, if you think about it) – none of it really works.
In the film, Will Smith stars as Daryl Ward, a veteran beat cop who has been teamed up with Nick Jakoby (Joel Edgerton) – the first ever Orc cop on the LAPD. The opening scene sees Daryl get shot, and Nick failing to capture the criminal who did it – everyone thinks that he let the shooter get away because it was another orc, and orcs cannot be trusted. Everyone wants Nick out – and go to Daryl to try and help them do it. Then, through a series of events too complicated to comprehend, the two partners essentially have to go on the run together – they have a wand, and everyone wants the wand, and everyone will kill for the wand – including their own fellow cops.
I wish I could work up much hatred for Bright – hatred at least makes things interesting – but I really can’t. To be honest, I was pretty much bored from beginning to end of the film. The cast is full of talented stars – not least of which is Smith, who you could normally count on to deliver great amounts of charm in his roles, but now just seems to be coasting. The rest of the cast is wasted – with not even the great Edgerton being able to leave an impact on the film.
Up until Bright, I could defend the choices Netflix was making by saying that were funding the kind of films no one else would – they were daring, and edgy – and even if they didn’t all work, you admire them for going for it. Bright is the exact opposite of those films in pretty much every way.
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