Cinemavenger

   The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.

Bright

Remember when McDonald's added pizza to its menu?  Or that time Michael Jordan thought he could play baseball?  Or when Bruce Willis tried his hand at being a blues singer named Bruno?  How about when Playboy stopped showing nudity?  When people forget to stay in their lanes, bad things happen.

Netflix helped kill the video store by delivering DVDs directly to people's homes.  Then it became the first big league streaming service.  Later, Netflix began creating its own content in the form of series like the excellent House of Cards and cheapo, throwaway movies. 

With Bright, its first big budget, big name, would-be blockbuster, Netflix joins the list of burger flippers slinging asstacular 'za, basketball legends whiffing at changeups, actors assaulting our eardrums and nudie mags with nary a nipple or vag to be found.  Bright is a $90M wet fart, another nail in the coffin of Will Smith's career and an epic fail for Netflix.

I can practically hear director David "I Make Cop Movies" Ayer and writer Max "Nepotism" Landis excitedly pitching Bright to some Netflix douche. 

Ayer:  It's a buddy cop flick set in Los Angeles . . .

Landis:  . . . in a world where orcs, dragons and fairies are real!

Netflix douche:  You had me at "It's."  Sold!

Will "The Not So Fresh Prince" Smith is good guy LA beat cop Daryl Ward.  Ward has been reluctantly partnered with the first orc to wear a badge, Nick Jakoby ("Billy" Joel Edgerton).  An orc named Nick Jakoby?!  I bet the fairy's name is Julie and the dragon's name is Chad (when, given the location, it should obviously be Smog).

Edgerton's first-orc-on-the-force is hated by orcs for being a race traitor and by most of the humans for being an orc.  The upper class (you know, the Beverly Hills types and the Feds who pull jurisdictional rank on Ward and Jakoby) are pale-ass (I.E. White) elves.  The gangbanging, street slangin' orcs are clearly meant to represent African Americans, and thus Bright aspires to saying something about race relations.  What that is, though, Bright has no fucking idea.

The title of this piece of balrog shit refers to the one-in-a-million individual who can successfully use a magic wand.  Ward and Jakoby stumble onto a magic wand.  Golly, do you think one . . . or both . . . of them will turn out to be brights who can safely use the power of magic to save the day and/or put an end to racism?

Sitting through Bright is Mordor.

January 5, 2018