Bright (2017)

Imagine The Lord of the Rings happened in our world, a long time ago, and now Orcs and Elfs live among us in our modern world, a world filled with magic and fantasy. That's the premise of Bright, a buddy cop movie filmed with all the tropes of that genre, but sprinkled with the elements of fantasy. I do love genre mashups, and Bright worked for me by taking the classic elements of both and makes a truly fun adventure that lays the ground work for more stories set in this mish mash world. It all stems from the mind of writer Max Landis (Chronicle) who has some experience with mixing genres.

Director David Ayer truly embraces the B-movie elements of his story which may be why many are responding so negatively to his movie. Ayer takes the approach that he will live into the fantastic and not try to make it real. But in doing so the story remains fully cohesive and I could truly get into it. He builds the relationship between reluctant partners Daryl (Will Smith) and Nick (Joel Edgerton) on the cliched cop movie trope and it gives Smith espcially the oppotunity to do his enjoyable Will Smith shtick. Once they find themselves in a gang war relating to the "return of the Dark Lord," who of coarse remains unnamed, the two genres merge to form a truly enjoyable, if simple, ride.

And layered, perhaps a bit heavyhandedly, over all of this is an analogy for race relations in America. Casting a black man in the traditional white privilege roll also adds to the film's interesting analysis of American racism and classism. Yes Bright might be a bit on the straight-forward side but that doesn't weaken anything it is attempting to do.

Bright ends up being fun and not dumb. As I said, I would be up for more stories to be told in this world.

Bright
Starring: Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, Noomi Rapace, Edgar Ramirez
Director: David Ayer
Writer: Max Landis