So, it’s now into the early weeks of the year, everyone’s
either hungover, having sniffles catch up to them, or depressed. A perfect time
to slump onto the couch and mindlessly digest this new-fangled thing called
Netflix!
Yeah, there’s no better way to take in great new shows like
Expanse or Stranger Things, or go on nostalgia binges like with Fresh Prince.
On the movie side of things, however? Netflix is frankly a bit anemic a lot of
the time—for example, they’ve got Ghostbusters 2, but not the original? Evil
Dead 2, but not the first or Army of Darkness? It’s all like having an Italian
meal with just the breadsticks and ice cream. And considering how insanely
convoluted and piecemeal licensing gets between all these streaming services,
I’m not giving up my DVD movie collection just yet.
But now they’re coming around with their own feature film
productions—and prominent recently has been Bright, an urban fantasy starring
the aforementioned Fresh Prince Will Smith. And if you were growing up in the
nineties and early 2000s, it’s not hard to remember him as the king of
cool—single-handedly selling what could’ve otherwise been complete schlock like
Independence Day and Men in Black (though occasionally failing, like with Wild
Wild West). He’s not exactly the same star he used to be though—relegated to
droning in a strange accent in M Night ‘what a tweest that I still have a
career’ Shymalan, stumbling through Suicide Squad. I suppose Men in Black 3 was
decent, but Will isn’t getting jiggy with it as he used to be unfortunately—so
it’s going to be interesting to see how he holds up in something closer to what
he used to take in his earlier stardom.
Bright has an interesting premise right off the bat—‘what if
Middle Earth continued into the modern day?’ And so we enter an alternate Los
Angeles split between the classic fantasy races of Orcs, Elves, and humans, all
getting together in less than perfect harmony amidst the urban nightmare. If
you’re a colossal dork like me it’ll remind you of something called Shadowrun, though
that’s neither here nor there.
One thing that it did well immediately was the look—between
the excellent makeup, the combination of street decay and glimpses of everyday
life in this world do help to sell it, and I wanted to see more of it. There’s
the less than subtle racial allegories, of course, and I’m not even going to
try and comment on how well executed that was. Let’s just say that there’s one
infamous line that’s going to stick around for people.
The main story focuses on Ward, played by Smith, and his new
partner Jakoby, Joel Edgarton, the first Orc cop on the beat for the LAPD—the
former not really being happy about it. And neither are his colleagues for that
matter. As they go about their patrols, there’s glimpses of some sort of
conspiracy involving the resurrection of a ‘Dark Lord’ and ambiguous government
agencies in the background—enough to get me interested for the first third or
so to see where it all went.
Eventually, Ward and Jakoby stumble onto a crime scene that
sends them right into the middle of a brutal chase for a wish-granting magic wand—and
are joined by an elf called Tikka, played by Lucy Fry. After this, it kinda
stumbled a lot for me—there’s a lot of action scenes that are basically ‘Smith
and his Uruk-Hai friend get trapped in a scummy part of LA, but are saved just
in time by something fortunate’, repeated. Ward himself doesn’t feel consistent
enough for me to get a grip on his character, although Smith does put effort
into the lines—one minute he’s making what are basically racial slurs
(apparently Shrek exists here, raising a whole host of questions), the next
minute he’s being the nice cop. Tikka goes from being helpless to suddenly
being Leelo Dallas from the Fifth Element, while her former friends that hound
our heroes likewise go from slaughtering a SWAT team to being stymied by a beat
up and tired cop, and so on.
The best and consistent character is Jakoby, who gets
fleshed out enough for me to emphasize with him. Hell I wouldn’t mind a sequel
being all about him—there’s enough about his pulls between clans and his
profession to make for interesting threads. And hey, it’s nice to see an Orc in
a fantasy piece get his due instead of being a snarling monster with a face
like a smashed up mushroom platter.
And finally, the last action scene…was not exactly to my
liking, with the abrupt twist reminding me of something out a cheesy old
fantasy schlockflick like Krull (and I’ll get to that one someday). Still,
after that comes a funny enough moment with a debriefing that lighted things up
for me. A lot of things weren’t answered—we never really find out just what the
‘Dark Lord’ was about, though I guess we can just assume he was Discount
Sauron, probably operating out of the land of Schmordor. Maybe it’s something
to find out next time? I dunno.
All in all? I wouldn’t say Bright is as bad as some of the
more venomous critical thrashing it got, but it’s definitely flawed and uneven.
Still, there was enough in the aesthetics, world, and one or two of the characters
that I could see another instalment working better with some polish and better
characterization. If you want to have a slightly aged Fresh Prince fight elves
and orcs on your Netflix in the background, while you whatever it is you do with
Netflix in the background, then sure, why not.
Maybe they can have Will wear a police vest made from
Mithril next time. The difference between him and Frodo? He makes it look good.
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