"Bright" Review: The Rumors Are True
By this time, you’ve unwrapped your gifts, dealt with a little family love and drama, and might be getting in a little work before the New Year break. So why not escape from reality for a couple hours with director David Ayer’s Bright? Let’s just say that’s not a bright idea. Yeah, because the film is about as corny as that last pun.
Will Smith is Daryl Ward, a veteran cop who is getting back out on the street with his orc partner, Nick Jakoby (Joel Edgerton), after being shot by a criminal. It’s bad enough that orcs are considered scum in this world of humans, elves, and fairies, but diversity hire Jakoby is a part of the reason Ward was shot. So Jakoby is hated by virtually everyone in his life and his own kind. When a routine response uncovers a magic wand at the residence, the two partners are the most sought after cops in...can we call it Middle-earth for kicks? Everyone wants the wand because whoever wields it can be granted whatever they wish for. The problem is, only a Bright can hold it and live.
Thus, a survive the night film of sorts kicks off. Not the kind that Ayers is good for, but the kind of buddy-cop drama that just doesn’t work, reminiscent of the films that came out post Lethal Weapon. While the world building in the film is decent, you constantly feel like something isn’t quite right. You’re waiting for a punch line that’s never revealed. Maybe that’s the problem; the film takes itself seriously. With elves that do acrobatic martial arts moves and don’t miss when it comes to taking a shot, in the midst of a barrage of bullets that miss, it’s hard to believe. It’s also hard to believe there’s no racist themes underlying the film. With the orcs as baggy clothe wearing gangsters living in the slums, the elite elves wearing the latest high-fashion clothes and living in a gentrified area, and humans fitting somewhere in between, the “races” lean into stereotypes. It’s certainly not the District 9 environment it strives to be.
When news hit that superstar Will Smith would be starring in a Netflix film, a sense of excitement hit blogs and media outlets. Seeing Smith in Bright is the equivalent of the time that you beat your dad in a race for the third time. You knew he hadn’t been winning for a while, and you thought maybe it was a fluke. This film cements Will’s range and the fact that his delivery is still stuck in the Bad Boys 2 era. Edgerton is wasted, but it’s probably a good thing that you can’t recognize him in all his orc make-up. Genius decision! Noomi Rapace adds a small spark of excitement as Leilah, the big baddy hunting down her wand.
At the end of the day, in order to bake a good cake, you take different ingredients and bring them together. Generally, they’re brought together with one or two key ingredients that can gel them all and poof! Deliciousness! Bright has all the right ingredients, but it’s lacking the jell to bring them together. Ayer is known for his signature style in the cop genre. He wrote Training Day! He wrote/directed End of Watch (a film I enjoyed)! He has skills. Ayer teamed with his longtime cinematographer, Roman Vasyanov, so the film’s look is definitely there. The cast on paper is a solid ensemble. Taking Ayer’s style and infusing it into a fantasy world could work had Max Landis’ script not been so disjointed.
There’s a reason Bright is getting a lot of buzz for being bad. It’s bad! Yet, the word of mouth that has drawn in 11 million viewers in the first three days maybe the kind of thing that years from now makes it a cult classic. Perhaps that’s why you checked out this review. Perhaps that’s while you’ll check it out yourself. Just don’t say you weren’t warned.
Rating: D
"It Comes At Night" Review
Americans are primed for the apocalypse. Whether the deluge of doomsday preparation and undead apocalypse TV shows or cardio-based zombie evasion fun runs, we’re a nation steeped in the possibility that all men will eventually become zombies. And when that time comes we’ll have achieved a 40-yard-dash time quick enough to outrun the bloodthirsty masses to a fortified armory and help rebuild civilization. Escaping danger is our collective middle name.
Thing is, once we’ve hacked and slashed our way to safety, all that time spent locked away in the abandoned fort will be tedious. There’s drama, sure. Leaders will emerge and be challenged, resources will go dry and need replenishing and all our social networks will be useless. Survival is a waiting game, meal after meager meal, day after dull day, month after miserable month.
It Comes at Night, the second feature-length movie from Trey Edward Shults (Krisha), is laced with small doses of excitement, but spends much of its running time watching its characters wait in fear. Shults employs the camera as a tight third-person observer. While boogeymen real and imagined circle the limited world of the script, the camera is focused on the mental and physical strain our heroes suffer as they undertake survival. They are bound to a day-to-day exercise in trust, regiment and they hold a skeptical gaze toward any stranger in their midst.
The family in question is only identified as father Paul (Joel Edgerton), mother Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), as fear has a way of grinding units down to individuals. The familial clan of survivalists are holed up in the woods while an ambiguous plague threatens the world around them. At the start of the film, the illness has already claimed one other family member, but little else is explained about its origin or effects. It Comes At Night is not about the fight against the undead, but the threat of sickness penetrating the family unit. It opens in a tragedy meant to solidify the family unit and warn the viewer of both the outsider itself and the fear of outsiders.
After the deceased is laid to rest Paul, Sarah and Will must move on and bury sadness with trust and routine. When a young father, Will (Girls’ Christopher Abbott) barges in on the trio in search of supplies, it takes some time before Paul agrees to bring Will’s family into their fold. Joel Edgerton’s Paul is nothing if not a cautious realist, but he’s flawed in his fearfulness. While the two families attempt to live together in tension and mistrust, Travis has visions that wind the daily tension with nightly terror. His insomnia is the lens of horror tropes. He sees his mouths filled with blood, animal corpses and one of the film’s very few jump scares.
Shults uses Travis’s nightmare sequences to explicate both the characters fears and his desires. It Comes At Night follows through with a drama film that plays as horror because the viewer, through close camera focus, is meant to watch the characters diligently to see how and when they break. While the familiar beats of zombie films and backwoods horror will delight enthusiasts of both genres, the subdued action may disappoint some. Still, It Comes At Night holds so steadily in its watchful gaze that the viewer must see themselves walking down every empty hallway. And as horror films are often a chance to live out death from the safety of an armchair, It Comes At Night is a chance to be the weary eye of a survivor, waiting and watching in fear.
Rating: A-
The Great Gatsby
I didn’t read the book. (Although we all know films can’t quite compete with your imagination.) I saw the 1974 movie and couldn’t stand it. I saw this movie and realized that even with Baz Luhrmann’s stylistic visuals, and Jay-Z’s monopoly of the soundtrack, “The Great Gatsby” is really average.
The film is about...wait you didn’t read the book, the cliffnotes, or see any of the two prior films before this one? (There is a third film but it was made in 1926 and there are no existing prints.) Alright, there’s an illusive man named Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) who has built himself up from nothing to “something”. He really loves a married woman named Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan). He buys a house across the lake from Daisy and her husband Tom (Joel Edgerton) in a grand plan to rekindle his lost love. Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) is the narrator and liaison between his cousin Daisy and new neighbor, Jay Gatsby.
With all the myths, rumors, and legends surrounding Gatsby, Nick can’t help but to want to get close to Gatsby. Gatsby throws wonderful, grandiose parties full of women, music, and booze. So when Nick receives a personal invitation from the legend, he feels special and is enamored himself. Gatsby eventually asks Nick to host a tea with his cousin Daisy so that they can meet. From there the film is a love triangle with familiar twists and turns from your favorite soap.
DiCaprio is the bright spot of the film. He plays the enigmatic Gatsby with charm. He’s able to flip back and forth between confidence and the lack thereof, and madly in love to plain mad with ease. Joel Edgerton does a great job as the pompous cheating husband. The climatic showdown between him and DiCaprio is unsettling and a dramatic joy to watch. I had a conversation with co-workers prior to seeing the film about why I thought Carey Mulligan was a bad choice for Daisy. Could her face really launch a thousand ships? I know/knew she is one of the better actresses of this generation, but it didn’t sit right with me. I was wrong. The girl next door warmth made it understandable why Gatsby would love her. As for her cousin, he may have been the wrong call in casting, giving Nick Carraway a dopey portrayal.
Luhrrman did a good job in keeping the dialogue moving, bringing the visuals of 1920‘s debauchery to screen, and an uncanny way of making beautiful things become scary with the flip of a musical note. Unfortunately, the movie as a whole has a slow start and a decent ending. It’s like a long train ride that when you finally get to your destination your more excited that it's over than the ok views you saw along the way.
Rating: C-
