Bright Review (No Spoilers)

Netflix's latest original feature length film, Bright, has been getting polarizing reviews from both fans and critics alike, and I have yet to see an opinion that isn't extreme. I've noticed, through social media, that most average fans thoroughly enjoyed the film, but critics form Rotten Tomatoes to Youtube hated the film and ripped it apart in their analysis. On the other hand, my opinion of the film is far more neutral, while still leaning towards the consensus of average fans, because I genuinely enjoyed it. However, there were still a lot of issues with the execution of the film.

Bright, as described by Will Smith, is a hybrid between Lord of The Rings and Training Day, where he plays an LAPD cop, Daryl Ward, with a rookie Orc cop, Nick Jackoby, played by Joel Edgerton, as his partner, in an alternate world that hates Orcs. This world hates Orcs, because 2000 years prior, during the war between the 9 Races and the Dark Lord, the Orcs decided to fight for the Dark Lord. This war would seem to be a major difference between our world and their's, causing a historical divide between our two worlds, but the word "Nigga" still exists, and one of the other officers who is hispanic mentions that, "We're still getting blamed for the Alamo." These two things suggest that the African Slave Trade and racist ass colonists still existed even after a unifying war against pure evil. This makes no sense to me, because one would think that we would enslave Orcs as punishment for their betrayal of mankind and not continue to displace and murder Africans and Native Americans. But they all have to end up in LA and play on their racial stereotypes, because, y'know... movie has to movie. This seems lazy to me, because everyone seems to maintain the same position in the social hierarchy that we experience, but the only difference is that Orcs are at the very bottom (with the exception of Fairies because they're basically bugs in this world) and Elves are at the very top. The mythology of this world is confusing and isn't very well thought out. It's almost as if they got so caught up in writing a story that establishing the universe became an after thought. Also I feel as though they included familiar stereotypes, because it made it easier for them to make jokes that the audience would understand. But this just led to clunky dialogue and cringe worthy comedy. With that said, these issues aren't enough to detract from the enjoyable story, pretty awesome action, and Will Smith (he was admittedly dope).