MOVIE REVIEW: BRIGHT (2017)

Bright is a Will Smith movie on Netflix. It is perhaps the most interesting yet one of the worse movies that I have seen yet. It is perhaps a great example of world building and also what not to do with a movie. Spoilers follow.

The good of the movie is the world. It is an interesting, shadow-run-esque world where fantasy creatures are in a modern world. There are hints of the past and conflicts between the races that are left with a mystery but still give you enough details to fuel some speculation. This also tries to deal with things such as racism and prejudice, trying to mirror real-world type events.

So now onto the bad. The biggest problem is definitely Will Smith's character. He is just Will Smith. This is meant to be a character finding his legs after a traumatic experience as a cop, concerned about his family and keeping his pension. Instead, he is cocky, one of the best gun-shooters in the force, and very arrogant. The beginning of the movie shows him protecting his family, but this is forgotten about by the end of the movie. And to be clear, I am not sure how much control Will Smith actually had on his character, but I am not blaming him.

Apart from that, the rest of the movie is a mess. As mentioned before, plot threads are made up like they are important (Will Smith's wife and daughter, Orc prejudice, selling their house and his pensions, etc.) but are then promptly forgotten as Will Smith transforms into a super-competent action hero. Things that should be suprises (such as being a Bright) are ruined early in the movie. And some references are put in for laughs, without considering that in the Bright universe, they don't actually make sense. And then there is that every sentence someone says has at least 2-3 swear words in it.

So overall it is a huge misfire. A Blade Runner-type movie in a modern fantasy-like world sounds interesting, and the backstory in the movie sounds better than the actual movie. Here, the lack of clear characters and plot direction make this movie dead on arrival. In hindsight, the makers of the film need to go back to looking at story structure 101 and write good characters. Also, Will Smith has been phoning in performances so many times now (Suicide Squad as well) that I think he has lost allot of his stock with me.

1 out of 5 Dark Waffles.