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Critic Reviews
"This ambitious, yet astonishingly well-executed Netflix tentpole directly benefits from the way Ayer’s gritty, streetwise sensibility grounds Landis’ gift for creating an elaborate comic-book mythology."
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"Bright could have been something truly special if it had slowed down the pace of its narrative to allow for a fuller exploration of its engaging world."
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"For all its flaws, Bright is still a headlong leap into a bracingly different new world. Cinema could do with more of that."
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"Bright is a series of disconnected action vignettes that work as standalone sequences, but don’t hang together in any kind of meaningful way. It’s impossible to not think of Suicide Squad’s similar failings as Bright barrels from one dark, noisy scene to the next."
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"Bright gestures vaguely at an allegory about police brutality and race, which may have been more impactful in the original script. It’s hard to tell. For his part, Landis has largely disowned the final product, which buries some glimmers of interesting ideas under a thick layer of adolescent tough-guy posturing."
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"It’s a flawed, frustrating film made even more lackluster by its failure to explore its own weighty themes and its apparent refusal to connect those themes to its story and characters."
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"There are sparks of solid action amidst the confusion, but Max Landis’ script contains too much stilted dialogue to properly ignite."
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"Like most aspects of the film’s mythology, the whole Bright business feels like the non-brainwave of a random plot generator – a will-this-do device Landis barely integrates into his wider story. As a choice for the film’s title, it’s singular, but silly."
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"Bright turns out to be more interested in its mythrilpunk world-building than any kind of social commentary, which is a good thing, because while it is so-so at the former (the plot holes in this thing), it is clearly out of its depth with the latter."
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"Ultimately, the biggest problem with Bright is that it squeezes nudity, profanity and blood into the kind of dopey adventure that should be aimed more at adolescents — right down to its simplistic lessons about tolerance."
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"Neither a satisfying treaty on diversity and 'race' wars, nor a fulfilling fantasy, it derails at the end of the first act with a confusing moment of anti-heroism, and never recovers."
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"It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it’s not nearly as self-deprecating and funny as it needed to be."
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"It’s the kind of film that sets up a compelling sandbox in which to play, and then smashes gracelessly through it, cackling all the while."
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"Ayer and Landis’s world is so dull and ill-conceived that few will want to spend any additional time there. It’s a world of magic that lacks any of its own."
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"It is quite literally the company’s biggest disaster to date; a colossal waste of time, money, and effort. "
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"You’ll find beatings, shootouts, car crashes, awkward analogies and a measure of buddy badinage in “Bright,” but true enchantment is in short supply."
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"The problem with setting a familiar story in a foreign universe is that you have to establish the parameters of said universe or risk losing your audience. That's world-building 101, folks. Bright does not care about that. Bright's attitude is closer to "fuck you for not somehow keeping up with our cool shit" before doing a lot of push-ups."
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"A welter of dissonant intentions, the film fails to seamlessly intertwine its elements of realism and fantasy."
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"Bright pulls off the uncommon (and not at all admirable) hat trick of being confusing, boring, and vaguely insulting about the matters it wants to appear smart on. The movie is a case of reading the room very wrongly, then slapping a lot of violence and muddled mythology on top as a means of distraction."
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"The finished product, though plenty embarrassing, isn't quite involving enough to merit the kind of pile-on mockery that greeted Ayer's DC Comics abomination Suicide Squad."
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"There may be no more unexpected (or damning) faint praise for David Ayer’s new movie Bright than this: It made me wish I was watching “Suicide Squad” instead."
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"There is a whiff of an interesting idea in there, but it is buried in tedious scenes lacking clear direction, endless generic (and poorly lit) shoot-outs, and cringeworthy sequences of allegedly witty banter. This movie is an absolute wreck."
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"Bright tries to create a unique and dynamic world with the juxtaposition of harsh police life, crime and modern life contrasted with this imaginary magical realm, but it’s contrived, unconvincing and most of all calamitously preposterous."
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"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 that often feels like it was made just to put those earlier misfires into perspective."
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