[Review] Bright (4/10)

It was Suicide Squad that did it for me - to finally realize the flaws in David Ayer's direction. When he was directing smaller movies like Street Kings and Sabotage, I would let a lot of things slide because they were smaller movies. But when I was sorely let down by Suicide Squad, that was it. 

Bright was no different. A movie with a lot of potential, with a good setup in the first half; only to be destroyed in the second half by illogical plot points and sequences.

I did not like any of the promotional trailers put out - Will Smith has lost his appeal for me, and it was only Joel Edgerton that made me pay attention; though with all the makeup it really did not matter.

But the first half was really decent, to introduce this parallel world where mystical species lived among humans. 

Some of the dialogue was too on-the-nose as well, and this could also be the fault of the writer Max Landis. The racial issues had no subtlety and when Smith and Edgerton's characters had one scene where they had a moment of empathy for each other, it was almost painful to watch.

Also Smith's character had no redeeming qualities. He came off more like this pompous and selfish character while Ayer or Landis probably thought it would play more like comedy. Every sentence he uttered to Edgerton was filled with condescension and insensitivity, and I just could not get behind Smith's character no matter what he did.

The final act of this movie was a mess. Nothing made sense, things happened out of convenience and the only way to move scene to scene was having one character saying something along the lines of "just go with it". Like that last scene when the good elf disappeared, how would Edgerton knew what happened to her? It just did not make sense.

If Ayer will be directing the sequel, then I just could not care less even if Edgerton does come back, which seems very likely.