Bright
Will Smith and Joel Edgerton star in this fantasy thriller created by Suicide Squad director David Ayer. In an alternate modern world, fantasy creatures and humans have been living together since the dawn of time. Think Lord of the Rings in the present day.
Two police officers, a human and an orc, are thrust into a protecting a young elf girl and hiding an ancient weapon that could wipe out everything. In this world, Orcs are the lowest social class, and are known to be criminals and outcasts. This sets an interesting dynamic between Will Smith, the human, and Joel Edgerton, the orc. It was just a shame that it grew to be predictable.
It received poor critical acclaim, which put me off at first, but I genuinely enjoyed it. It could be cheesy at times, and certainly felt rushed but there was a definite charm to the film.
It did feel like the cast really did care about the film. Will Smith and Joel Edgerton were both extremely strong, and I could tell that they wanted the film to be a success. It’s just a shame that they couldn’t make up for the sloppy direction.
Hands down the best thing about Bright is the world building. As a huge fan of fantasy, especially Lord of the Rings, it was great to see the all the famous fantasy creatures such as Orcs, Elves, Centaurs and fairies living side by side. I just wish that the film could’ve been longer or was made into a big budget television series as well. The opening scene of Orcish graffiti all over LA buildings really sticks in my mind, it was a gritty and stylish way to start the film.
Overall, Bright is a really good premise that sadly fell short on execution. With a 90 million dollar budget, and a sequel confirmed before it even released, we can just hope that the next Bright film will expand on what worked with the first one.