Bright

So I'm back. Yeah, yeah. I've been gone and missed Halloween movie reviews. So with all the police complaints throughout the cities of this country, I thought I would get a film from the long back when 2017 (yeah my nephew loves that so long ago comment to watch me twitch). A view of the LAPD, magic and meta beings. With copious amounts of car chases, gun fights worthy of a John Woo film and snappy patter, I feel this film is sorely underrated. This is Bright. 

 

What do you mean you didn't like Fresh Prince?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Through the lens of writer/director David Ayer (U-571 The Fast and the Furious, Training Day, Dark Blue, S.W.A.T., End of Watch, Fury, Suicide Squad and Training Day TV series) shows a world looking like a modern day Middle Earth with Orcs, Elves, Fairies and every other fairy tale creature in between. Imagine exotic elves dominating Malibu, Orcs drinking 40s in South Central and humans of every color and class crammed in this expanded desert city. 

 With a long road to recovery, Officer Daryl Ward (Will Smith of Independence Day, Bad Boys, Men in Black, Wild Wild West, Ali, I, Robot, Shark Tale and I Am Legend) is fit for duty and to get back to the streets.   His partner, an Ork named Nick Jakoby (Joel Edgerton of The Hard Word, The Secret Life of Us,Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones, King Arthur, Kinky Boots, Smokin' Aces, Whisper and Dirt Game) failed to catch Ward's shooter and it has caused some tension between the two. Vowing to start a new day and not getting old hard feelings back, the boys roll into the station, load the shop and back out into town.   Dealing with routine pick ups, cruising the neighborhood, Ward is told by IA (Internal Affairs) they don't trust Jakoby's account of the shootout that landed Ward in the hospital. They want to can him but they can't just open end fire him without huge blow back. Ward agrees to record Jakoby's confession and get IA off his ass.

 

Ugh, I can smell talking monkeys.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Towards the end of shift, the boys roll down to South Central to a possible gunfight. As they investigate a building with a mass amount of dead assailants, our cops run into Tikka (Lucy Fry of Lightning Point, Reef Doctors, Mako Mermaids, Vampire Academy, Now Add Honey, Mr. Church, Wolf Creek, The Darkness and She's Missing) a young elf girl running scared with a terrifying weapon, a magic wand. With an explosion and a substantial gun fight, the Barrio hoods heard about the wand and now the crap storm is moving into an tsunami. 

 Subplot 2 indicates The FBI's Magic Division are trailing a wand user. She's a renegade elf name of Leilah (Noomi Rapace of Daisy Diamond, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Millennium, Beyond, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Prometheus). It would appear she and her minions...hmm lackeys? Lick spittles? Yay! Lick spittles! Anyway she and her lick spittles are trying to resurrect a being known as The Dark Lord and bring about an era of darkness the world hasn't seen in 5,000 years. 

 

Please sir, more gruel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Subplot 3 gives us Leilah and her lackeys hot in pursuit after Ward, Jakoby and Tikka to reclaim the wand and go about the ending of the world. With corrupt cops, L.A. Gangbangers, FBI not knowing who is the good guys and renegade elves, Ward and Jakoby are in the soup and brother that soup is scalding. Trying to think, catch their collective breaths and not kill one another; the boys have to protect Tikka and the wand from all this crazy that only L.A.can produce. 

Where to even begin with this flick? The racist and class issues tone is perfect. The ignorance of races and hatred of the haves and have nots holds true to these misconceptions we all have a tendency to cling to. Realizing all the elves are in Malibu makes me wonder how many spray tanned, bleach teethed white folk got tossed out of the neighborhood for "lowering the tone'. Just made me laugh is all. 

 

 

Ward and Jakoby both are openly mocked by their own. As members of minorities, folk that have been brutalized by cops of the generations, it seems obscene that either of these men would be cops in many eyes. This would be the second film both Will Smith and Jay Hernadez was in with David Ayer. The first being Suicide Squad. Yet another underrated film of David Ayer. It's violent, it's graphic and yes fellas; there's a bit of titty in it. Trust me, you will stay in for the story as well. More gun play than a Lethal Weapon flick. Hell the shots look like an homage to John Woo's A Better Tomorrow. 

 Can you let the kids watch it? Well...I'm not a parent but overall it's not that big a deal violence, language and nudity wise but again; I am not a parent. It's ultimately the parents' call. For the parents however, yeah you will get a serious gut laugh in some of these scenes. I own this and it gets slipped into the regular watching. Have a good one and sorry for the hiatus.

 

A malefic, murderous, Maybeline model?