Bright — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Plot

Humans coexist with other sentient species, notably orcs and elves. Magic is real, but it is illegal to practice. Magic wands exist, but only a few individuals called "Brights" can wield them without dying.

In Los Angeles, veteran officer Daryl Ward is involuntarily partnered with Nick Jakoby, the first orc police officer ever in the US. Jakoby is detested by the other police officers for his species and by orcs for being a policeman. Ward's relationship with Jakoby is strained since Ward was shot by an orc robber whom Jakoby failed to apprehend; Internal Affairs suspects Jakoby deliberately let him go.

One night, Ward and Jakoby respond to a disturbance at a safe house for the Shield of Light, an extremist group that prophesies the return of the Dark Lord, an ancient semi-mythical figure defeated millennia ago. The lone survivor is Tikka, an elf girl, who has a wand. Ward calls for backup, but when the four arriving officers see the wand, they try to coerce Ward into killing Jakoby and letting them steal it for themselves.

The four officers give Ward a choice between him and Jakoby being killed or just Jakoby being killed, wanting to steal the wand for themselves. Ward initially accepts the second option, but then demands the truth about the robber from Jakoby. Jakoby admits he lost sight of Ward's assailant and mistakenly apprehended a younger orc, whom he then helped flee, knowing that the police would most likely kill the boy on sight. After learning the truth, Ward decides to shoot and kill all four of the officers instead. The gunfire attracts the attention of a Hispanic gang, while rumors of the wand draw the attentions of both its owner Leilah, the leader of the radical elf sect the Inferni; and Kandomere, an elf FBI agent assigned to the federal Magic Task Force. The gangsters corner the trio in a strip club as their leader demands the wand to cure his paralysis. They are slaughtered by Leilah, allowing the trio to escape. At a service station, Ward contacts his friend, Deputy Sheriff Rodriguez, who contacts Kandomere, but Leilah intercepts their conversation. While attacking the service station, she kills Rodriguez.

Escaping again, the trio is captured by the Fogteeth Orcs, whose leader Dorghu also wants the wand. He orders his son Mikey to kill Jakoby. However, Mikey is the orc that Jakoby had saved, so Mikey refuses to kill him. Sending Mikey away, Dorghu kills Jakoby himself. As he prepares to kill Ward, Tikka uses the wand to resurrect Jakoby, showing she is a Bright. The Fogteeth's shaman pronounces this to be part of a prophecy, causing the clan to kneel to them, setting them free. Tikka explains that the Inferni believe that assembling three wands will allow them to resurrect the Dark Lord. She was once a member of the Inferni but fled the group and was sheltered by the Shield of Light. Leilah loaned her wand to a Bright assassin to kill Tikka. Tikka killed the assassin, taking the wand.

Using the wand to resurrect Jakoby has made Tikka gravely ill, and she can only be healed in a magical pool at the safe house. Returning there, they are ambushed by Leilah and her enforcers. In the confrontation, Leilah's guards are killed, but she holds Tikka helpless as Ward and Jakoby run out of ammunition. Ward grabs the wand, believing that the resulting explosion will kill all of them. To everyone's amazement, Ward does not die, revealing he is a Bright. He kills Leilah with the wand, triggering an explosion that sets the building on fire. Tikka disappears, and the injured Ward and Jakoby escape the building, with Jakoby leading the way. After exiting, he realizes Ward is not with him and is trapped inside. Casting aside first responders, Jakoby charges back into the building, pulling his partner from the flames and debris just in time. This act of bravery is witnessed by the Fogteeth clan, so Dorghu 'bloods' Jakoby (a mark of great respect within Orc society).

Ward and Jakoby know that the FBI want knowledge of magical activity kept secret. At a hospital, they give Kandomere a doctored account of the previous night's events. Kandomere understands the deception but accepts their tale regardless. In a public ceremony, Jakoby and Ward are celebrated as heroes, and Rodriguez's memory is honored. Ward smiles as he spots Tikka moving through the crowd in disguise.

Critical response

Bright received criticism for its screenplay, cinematography, poor worldbuilding, and ineffective and heavy-handed social commentary. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 26% based on 113 reviews, with an average rating of 4.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Bright tries to blend fantasy, hard-hitting cop drama, and social commentary—and ends up falling painfully short of the mark on all three fronts." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 29 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave a negative review of 1.5 stars out of 4. He said: "Bright is basically a tired buddy-cop movie dressed up in bizarre trappings ... It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it's not nearly as self-deprecating and funny as it needed to be." Writing for Rolling Stone, David Fear gave the film 1 out of 4 stars, criticizing the script and incoherent action scenes, writing: "This combo of gritty cop procedural and fantasy is a dark, dank, dumb-as-hell mess."

David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film an "F" and called it the worst film of 2017, saying: "There's boring, there's bad, and then there's Bright ... from the director of Suicide Squad and the writer of Victor Frankenstein comes a fresh slice of hell that somehow represents new lows for them both—a dull and painfully derivative ordeal that often feels like it was made just to put those earlier misfires into perspective." Ayer responded enthusiastically to Ehrlich's review, claiming that he desired for the film to receive "a strong reaction either way."

NPR's Chris Klimek wrote: "Critics have already lined up to pillory Bright as among the year's worst releases. Don't believe the clickbait. Lazy but not boring, this Net-flick is perfectly, stubbornly mediocre, and less a chore to sit through than either of 2017's Vin Diesel vehicles," referring to XXX: Return of Xander Cage and The Fate of the Furious.

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