The relationship is only in the Alien Nation would be pitched as Lethal Weapon meets Star Trek wheres this would be pitched a Lethal Weapon meets Lord of the Rings (i.e. they share some Buddy Cop DNA).
Saw a centaur cop. Hope to see more.
The f/x budget must be huge. That’s a lot of prosthetics.
We watched it last night. My husband enjoyed it. The genre isn’t really my cup of tea but I liked it too.
I didn’t like Will Smith in this, though. His cop persona IMO hit a wall awhile ago. Plus I think part of me was expecting a Men In Black vibe. OTOH I had absolutely no issues with the rest of the cast.
I do find this urban magical fantasy world fascinating, though. I was expecting a troll or two to wander through at some point.
Well there is still one race unaccounted for out of the nine that united to defeat the dark lord, IMO Trolls are the most likely choice.
Hmmm … I watched (most of) Bright last night and only saw that one Fairy plus the Elves, Humans, and Orcs. So I only caught four races. What other four races were shown?
I missed large chunks of the first 30 minutes, but saw the rest of it all the way through.
There was a brief shot of a centaur cop, a lizard men crossing sign (and i think one of the strippers had lizard eyes), a dragon flying around the city (they are usually intelligent beings in this type of setting, not animals like in GoT). I guess we didn’t see a dwarf but i would assume they were one of the races also.
There was also a shot of a woman blinking with (maybe) nictitating membranes, or a set of horizontally closing eyelids, I think. Though she could be of the lizard race, she looked very human otherwise.
I’m not sure that the dragons and faeries are meant to be other races—the faeries are (hopefully!) non-sentient creatures (otherwise the casual killing would be beyond horrific), and there’s no reason to believe the dragons are anything more than large, flying reptiles.
I agree. The story isn’t complicated, nor is the back story. I think critics don’t know what to do with it.
Whether or not you agree, it’s an interesting read.
Thanks for the conversation!
There was a bearded guy I thought may have supposed to have been a dwarf but he wasn’t short.
As far as the critics reaction, I think someone above had it right, it felt like a pile on. Because it was weird and new and easy to mock everyone just decided it sucked.
What annoyed me is though they had all these other races, they didn’t d anything with them. You had humans, the orcs, a smattering of elves… and that’s it. Would liked to have seen more interaction with other species.
Yes.
However.
Then it gets too convoluted. For an opening show, this seemed to be just right. A glimpse at other races, and a decent look at elves and orcs. They can do more later.
I don’t regret watching it, though I think some of the TVMA stuff was a touch overdone for my tastes. I liked the wand.
So Nick is part of a prophesy? The reincarnation of Jirak? I was wondering if he was going to be the Bright.
I missed the centaur.
Would watch a series (doesn’t need Will Smith, could be the magic cop guys)
They mentioned Dwarves, but not the other races .
Brian
While I enjoyed parts of the film, there are legitimate reasons to think this is a terrible movie. There are some hilarious takedowns that even the director gave props.
For me it was all over the place. The orc character was really well acted and Will Smith has the charisma to sell anything. The pacing did not work for me at all. It took forever to get to the inciting incident and then the pacing really fell apart in the middle. The attempts at raising social consciousness were painfully bad. And it didn’t have to be that way. The setting itself was so compelling that the inequality spoke for itself. There was no need for “Are you a cop first, or an orc first?” All that was needed was the reality of the orc sitting in the squad car watching police beat the shit out of other orcs. That was bad writing. And there were too many of those moments, that feel the need to handhold the viewer through understanding racial inequality. The magic system was not entirely logical or understandable.
The improvised moments, though, were genuinely funny, and I teared up a bit during that pivotal scene with Jakoby and the pit. I think the entire premise is weird and difficult to accept on its face which could unfairly bias the viewer.
Where it fails the most in my view is missed potential to have been something greater. After I finished I gave it a B-.
Then I watched the movie “Okja” which is nothing like “Bright” but nonetheless so much more nicely constructed that it immediately made me realize I was being too generous with “Bright.”
I will still watch the sequel, why the hell not. The orc is loveable.
From a critical point of view, it is instructive to compare the original script. The egregious lines like “Are you a cop first?” simply aren’t there.
[In response to N9IWP] Ward and Jakoby do eventually realize they are involved in some sort of big prophecy (that is never explicitly spelled out), but there is no mention of Ward being a Bright.
Races mentioned include Humans, Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, Ogres, and Lizard-Men.
ETA I mean that there is no spoken line about Ward being Bright; you can still infer he might be a natural born Bright since he manages to activate the wand without killing himself.
More significantly, explain the elves. The orcs were ostracized because they supported the Dark Lord 2500 years ago, the only race to do so. The elves were now working to bring him back? Heck, weren’t some of them alive back then?
And I’d expect at least some portion of orcs in on it - thousands of years of oppression would make it seem to some like the only chance they’ll ever have of moving up is a world where the Dark Lord wins.
The Orcs in the church specifically mention that Jakoby fulfills some prophesy (when he came back from the dead) which is why I though he may be a Bright (The first Orc Bright ever/in 1000 years)
Brian
The Shield of Light guy they arrested early on told them that they were part of a prophecy (I actually misread the captions and that he said Jakoby was a Bright)…well, he mostly told Jakoby, since he told them in Orcish…
… and there is a shot with an actual Centaur in it. So that’s 7 out of 9 races. Who are the other two?
Assumed to be faeries and dragons, both of which we see also.