DAVID BIANCULLI

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BRIGHT
December 22, 2017  | By David Bianculli

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

 

MOVIE PREMIERE: This big-budget Netflix movie is set in a world where magic is real, and elves and fairies and other mystical creatures co-exist in a largely dystopian, otherwise familiar modern world. TV has explored this area before, most notably by HBO’s Witch Hunt in 1994, starring Dennis Hopper. In this version, Will Smith plays the human cop with a troll-like “Orc” partner (Joel Edgerton), with a human-alien dynamic recalling another TV sci-fi series, Fox’s Alien Nation. This film, for which Netflix already has ordered a sequel, has the pair trying to protect an elf who has stolen a magic wand from an evil elf named Leila (Noomi Rapace). As for the title, a “bright” is a wizard, and only a wizard can wield a magic wand. Director David Ayer and writer Max Landis mount Bright with a special love for videogame-style mayhem (as in Ayers’ recent Suicide Squad, also starring Smith), but the result is only marginally interesting. It’s not as horrible as many early reviews would suggest, but this first effort, at least, doesn’t come close to living up to the potential of the premise, or the budget of the movie.

 
 
 
 
 
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