What happens when you combine Lethal Weapon, Shrek and the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings stories? You get Bright.
For the record, Lethal Weapon is one of my all time favorite movies for several reasons, but it’s rare that anything pertaining to fantasy gathers my attention. I’ve yet to be able to sit through any of the Lord of the Rings stories without replacing it with something else. Shrek I’ve watched a few times and to be honest the only reason why I’ve watched any of them all the way through is because the individuals that I’m watching it with won’t let me leave or change it to something else that I would prefer… damn kids… But there was enough in the animated classic to make it bearable for me to watch.
Yes, I understand why they are so popular, they just ain’t for me…
I’ll grudgingly admit that I liked Bright.
Will Smith plays racist LAPD police officer Daryl Ward, a human cop that no one in the department likes and is forced to work with Nick Jakoby, the first Orc police officer in the LAPD played by Joel Edgerton. Ward holds a special grudge against his Orc partner because as the movie starts he is recovering from a shotgun blast while his partner was getting a burrito. His attempts at asking his supervisors to place the Orc with someone else falls on deaf ears but he’s unwilling to lie about Jakoby to get him terminated leaving him no other alternative but to partner with someone he looks down on and doesn’t trust.
What results is a movie that shares a common theme with other ‘buddy cops’ movies like Lethal Weapon, but takes place in a world where Fairy’s, Elf’s and Orc share it with humans and has these two mismatched police officers chasing after a magic wand through the slums of L.A. I found myself laughing through this movie in some rather unexpected times and caught a few of the Shrek references through it. I also suspect if I had watched more then five minutes of the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings movies I would have caught several other references there as well.
If you have young kids, be warned. This movie is for mature audiences with lots of blood and violence as well as some heavy language. Once scene takes place in a strip club so you will see some nudity. Not exactly the type of movie I would watch with my 6 year old niece.
