Orcs are real. They live in Los Angeles. Well, of course they do. I’m trying to understand the mindset behind this. Did the producers assume that if they made a movie about orcs and elves and magical devices that Peter Jackson would show up and epic battles would follow? Perhaps they considered that if you mixed modern day Will Smith with Lord of the Rings canon, you’d get another Independence Day. Or maybe, just maybe, they took a really bad idea and rolled with it. [See: Razor, Occam’s]
Straight out of not Compton, but a forgettable animated show called “The Critic,” LAPD Detective Daryl Ward (Smith) is partnered with an orc. There’s bad blood between he and partner Nick Jakoby (Joel Edgerton). Some months ago, Daryl got shot by an orc while Nick failed to have his back. As Daryl returns to duty, he doesn’t want Nick as his partner … but neither does anyone else. And Daryl is stuck as he is on the outs among his peers for accepting and orc partner in the first place. Hey, check it out, even in alternative reality, the LAPD is still racist. For the “funny part,” this isn’t terribly funny.
And if orc is the new black in El Lay, elves have replaced celebrities. Anybody who resembles Orlando Bloom is suddenly a first-class citizen. It helps that some Elves can do magic, oooooo. There are wands? Seriously? Is there the One Ring, too? Where do you have to take it? A pawn shop in Van Nuys? “It can only be unmade where it was made out of pure evil … the Disneyland Resort and Hotel.”
Ah yes, one more important piece of exposition – only a Bright can wield a wand. It will instantly kill any lesser being who touches it. This makes a wand both ridiculously impractical and a hilarious practical joke at the same time. I think I’m going to call this particular wand “MacGuffin.” What wand? Well, the wand that shows up ½ hour in, of course, and is immediately claimed [read: protected] by Daryl. I think it would have been a riot if the instrument were pursued by a big-haired fella from Watts named “Fro-do,” but I didn’t write this garbage. While MacGuffin is pursued by orcs, elves, LAPD, dealers, bangers, and the entire starting rotation of the Los Angeles Dodgers, it comes with the curse of Noomi Rapace.
Noomi plays a noobi elf here, which to her means shrieking something incomprehensible every four minutes to the delight of none save the closed-captions director. I would have called her performance the worst in this film – and Will Smith isn’t off the hook here—but that dishonor clearly goes to Joel Edgerton. After being married to minorities in both Loving and It Comes at Night, Edgerton decided that wasn’t good enough; he needed to be a minority. The role of orc to Joel meant delivering all of his dialogue in a slow, muppet-style
drawl not unlike Tully or Snuffleupagus. You know, I’m trying not to dislike all orcs on the basis of just the one I know, but … you’re not making it easy.
In the 1980s, this film starred James Caan and was called Alien Nation. It was mildly better, but still forgettable. In Bright, any attempt to make a statement about race relations and togetherness is swallowed whole by the unpleasant MacGuffin plot. At this point, I dearly wish Peter Jackson had been brought in to tell this tale; he couldn’t possibly have made it any worse.
After this, I must have Bad Boys 3
Magic police brutality
There’s a ring and all want to rob it
While Martin Lawrence stars as a Hobbit
Rated TV-MA, 117 Minutes
Director: David Ayer
Writer: Max Landis
Genre: Alien Nation
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Netflix representatives
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The viewing public
