The spousal unit and I have watched it a few times since its debut last month. Glad to see that they are doing a sequel. Will Smith was doing a classic Will Smith part. Nothing wrong with that.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

There was a lot of griping about the writing, which I generally agreed with, but overall I enjoyed the story and would like to see it fleshed out quite a bit more. I thought Joel Edgerton's character was pretty funny.

I agree with you about the writing, but how do you make so much of the fantasy world (elves, orcs, Magic Wands, centaurs, Dark Lords, etc.) fit within a two-hour movie without bruising the writing a little? It took Peter Jackson three two-plus hour movies to deliver a reasonable facsimile of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to the silver screen, and with a much-larger budget than they had on Bright.

I also agree with you about Joel Edgerton's orc character Nick Jakoby. That whole thing at the end, where he was explaining to the federal Magic Task Force agents what went on, was great. :-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

It didn't get great review but my brother said he enjoyed it.

It was a good watch. As someone else said, Will Smith is gonna Will Smith. I think one review said it was Training Day meets LOTR. Not a bad metaphor.

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LLLEEEEEEEEEEEERRRROOOYYY JEEENNNNNKKKIIINNNNNS!!!

Training Day meets Lord of the Rings. That's awesome! :-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I haven't watched it but I couldn't help but think it looked, at least from the previews, a lot like Alien Nation.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

I thought the exact same thing when I first saw the trailer. James Caan was the Will Smith character and Mandy Patankin (sp?) played the alien.

In this one, there are nine different races, all Earth-born. Orcs, Elves, Humans, Centaurs (I saw at least two in the movie), Fairies (I guess, though they're treated as pests/vermin) and I don't know what else.

It's really a straight-up cop buddy movie, good versus evil, etc. The fantasy aspects help drive it, in the alternate universe it inhabits, and the same guy who did "End of Watch" and "Suicide Squad" did this one. "End of Watch," I thought was a superlative -- and vastly unappreciated, cop-buddy movie with super-high levels of realism. Every one of my three uncles (all retired Detroit PD) and both cousins who are currently DPD say it's pretty much what cops do.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I think a lot of actors are the same in every movie, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I agree. Not a bad thing. And Samuel L. Jackson comes immediately to mind. ;-)

We had a discussion about who the better actor was, Samuel L. Jackson or Gary Oldman, several months ago. Some actors are chameleons, able to inhabit the skin of any person they choose and make you believe they're what they're portraying. Others aren't, but are able to deliver powerful performances within their own chosen acting paradigm. I think movies need both of them.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I agree. Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise in every movie. Same with Danzel Washington and many others. While I find many of Matt Damons opinions annoying I'm impressed he came be both Jason Bourne and a bumbling, insecure dork in the Oceans 11 movies.

Why was Will Smith in this movie? Did he need a paycheck? He seemed to be phoning it in. I can't imagine Netflix would be able to pay the salary he typically gets for a full length movie.

Supposed to have a budget of over $90m, which surprised me but should cover a decent pay packet for Smith.

Watched it over Christmas. Thought it was a decent buddy cop movie, pretty formulaic for that genre but that's OK. I found the action scenes to be pretty confused, too many similar looking characters flying around with a dark back drop, I could barely follow what was going on most of the time. Annoyed me that the main antagonist spent most of the movie being this awesome fighter who could kill multiple humans in seconds, then suddenly Will Smith is holding his own against her in a prolonged battle despite having no powers. Lots of movies do it, just annoys me, she ought to have at least been injured or been shown to be getting weak through not having her Wand or something to explain the change.

Yeah, the spousal unit and I remarked right away on that the first time we watched the flick. Really, those three super-bad Inferni elves, who'd already taken down an East LA group of Mexican gangbangers as well as a full LAPD SWAT team almost without cracking a sweat, went down pretty easily at the hands of Smith, Edgerton and that little teen-girl Inferni elf. That made me roll my eyes a little.

But like you say, it was a decent buddy cop movie and Netflix seems to think it did well and is ordering a sequel. Movies like that today are a lot of colors and darkness swirling together, along with some Matrix-style camera work (the scene where the Smith character drip-dried those four bad cops) and sometimes-weak writing requiring serious suspension of disbelief. But they're honest in admitting to us that they're basically cotton candy for our brains and nothing more.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."