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Bright

Bright (2017) Movie Poster
USA  •    •  117m  •    •  Directed by: David Ayer.  •  Starring: Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, Noomi Rapace, Edgar Ramírez, Lucy Fry, Veronica Ngo, Alex Meraz, Happy Anderson, Ike Barinholtz, Dawn Olivieri, Matt Gerald, Margaret Cho, Joseph Piccuirro.  •  Music by: David Sardy.
        In a world where mystical creatures live side by side with humans. A human cop is forced to work with an Orc to find a weapon everyone is prepared to kill for.

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Review:

Image from: Bright (2017)
Image from: Bright (2017)
Image from: Bright (2017)
Image from: Bright (2017)
Image from: Bright (2017)
Image from: Bright (2017)
Image from: Bright (2017)
Image from: Bright (2017)
Image from: Bright (2017)
Image from: Bright (2017)
Image from: Bright (2017)
Image from: Bright (2017)
First off I'm not paid off by a major Hollywood studio. On a macroscopic level, the concept of this film is quite interesting. A police procedural in a reality much similar to our own save for the fact that there are also fantastical creatures. The concept is one thing the execution is another. And so lets give it to the director of Suicide Squad.

You would think David Ayer would've learned how to pace and structure a film after the Hindenburg that was his last film. But no. This film has no clue on how to use planting and payoff and so you're never engaged. And it becomes infuriating at times. There is basically nothing pushing the plot. It just seems that stuff just happens to the characters. There are only one or two moments where a character makes a decision, be it minor or major. Hence the characters go through no arcs. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the cringe worthy dialogue: "Fairy lives don't matter(?)".

Strike two goes against the world building. Now again, when dealing with a high concept film like this where you are setting up the universe and its rules, you have to be meticulous. The world building is so sloppy that, again, the audience is no longer engaged. There are references to the Alamo and Shrek. How is that possible in that reality? Explain! And what does it mean when an Orc gets blooded? And with the film's Macguffin, a magic wand, they set up the rules, but yet then the characters aren't aware of the film's internal logic. And so it renders much of the second act quite moot.

Ugh. But the worst offense is the film's use of allegorical racism. Even a good film like Zootopia really missed the big picture, so imagine how poorly handled it was here. Racism is, for lack of a better word, complicated. It operates first on the concept of race, an arbitrary social construct. Human beings exhibit very superficial physical differences, but overall we are still one species. I can't tell you how many pointless conversations I've had with my simpleton friends when it came to defining a person's ethnicity, how their rules tended to fall apart after a few sentences. So it is not a one to one comparison when defining the relationship between a black dude and a white dude to a rabbit and fox or specifically an orc and a human. The marginalized group in this film are the orcs, because 2000 years ago there was a war with a Dark Lord or w.e. and they sided with him blah blah blah and that's it. There aren't any other institutional, societal or historical factors. And the characters that present their resentment towards the other are not subtle about it at all. Racism operates on many levels, and its not just based on emotion.

I wonder why Will Smith, one of my favourite actors, has been choosing such awful projects. Why is it that in every film now he is scowling when back in the days of Bad Boys and Independence day he was an overall happy and charming charming character. But while his last couple of films were forgettable, I can't really say the same for this. This film will be studied in classes, I guarantee it, but for all the wrong reasons. So while Will Smith chose another bad film, he at least chose a film that is pretty infamous, so I am interested to see what kind of career trajectory this will take him.


Review by arnieiam from the Internet Movie Database.

 

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