Bright is written by everyone’s favorite mad man, Max Landis. It’s directed by the dude you loved before Suicide Squad, David Ayer. And will be distributed by the algorithms responsible for at least 48 of your favorite shows, Netflix. It follows Will Smith as an inner city cop who teams up with an orc portrayed by Joel Edgerton. Hell yes, the cinematic actualization of the phrase, “so stupid it has to work.” The Lord of The RIngs: A Spike Lee Joint ? Sign me up.
According to Ayer, choosing Netflix as the home for the film has afforded him the freedom to attempt things he could never dream about under the thumb of a major studio. He sat down with cinemablend to talk about the experience:
“For me it’s pretty simple, this movie, I got to make it in a way and at a level, that otherwise I might not have been able to make. Everything technological about this is as if we had done a major feature. For me the only real difference is there’s a lot more freedom and creativity.”
Smith went on to echo these sentiments, stating that Netflix’s reliance on paid subscribers grants it the liberty to have confidence in its content creators.
The full-length trailer dropped at this year's San DIego Comic Con, and it looks great, a resplendent mashup of gritty realism and high fantasy. The plot seems to center around a magic wand and features a comically exasperated version of the helplessly likeable Will Smith you know and love. This film has ambition, but unlike many of the duds Smith signed on for in recent years, it has the right kind of talent behind it.
For a long time, Will Smith was the consummate movie star. Inexplicably magnetic, versatile (na-nah-nah-nah-na-na), and he possessed that indispensable sixth sense when it came to picking ambitious properties (sans a Matrix or two). Somewhere along the way, things changed.
It’s not a particularly trying downfall to track. I Robot seemed to be the juncture that saw Smith’s instincts go awry. A film about what it means to be human, using robots, written by the guy that wrote Batman and Robin, is a pitch that even a green, no-culture having asshole like me would have the wherewithal to turn down.
It’s the kind of “have the cake and eat it too” mistake a lot of movie stars who are looking to validate themselves as auteurs, whilst maintaining their box office crowns, tend to make. By and large, the kind of movie that makes a kajillion dollars and manages to be profound and thoughtful are just now starting to get made with some efficiency.
Smith isn’t just a leather jacket touting catch phrase dispenser – he’s got range, made clear by vehicles like Ali and The Pursuit of Happiness, even if neither one of those films are particularly good. At some point, it’s clear Smith was desperate to challenge himself with increasingly less conventional roles, though he’s never seem to quit get it right.
Hancock was a superficial dud that reneged on its promise to feature a knavish version of the typically winsome actor we’ve never seen before. I am Legend thrives on Smith’s performance, but ultimately forfeits its brilliant source material in service of genre trends. Seven Pounds was a pile of pseudo-inspiring Oscar bait, Men and Black 3 was desultory, After Earth gave my attention span cancer and Suicide Squad featured a jive-talking crocodile man.
The kind of stardom achieved by Will Smith never really wanes, but it can digress into the banal “movie-man” charisma perfected by actors like Tom Cruise. The Hollywood icon clearly yearns for a career that aims higher than that even now and I think Bright just might be the project that helps him achieve it.
Bright will be available for streaming Dec. 22 on Netflix.
