Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
In an alternate present-day where magical creatures live among us, two L.A. cops become embroiled in a prophesied turf battle.
Bright has an intriguing high-concept premise blending urban fantasy with buddy-cop noir, but squanders it with a muddled, derivative plot that borrows heavily from Training Day and generic action tropes without developing its world-building meaningfully. Will Smith and Joel Edgerton bring genuine effort — Edgerton in particular is compelling under heavy prosthetics — but the script gives them little to work with. Visually the film is competent but unremarkable, shot in a flat TV-movie style that fails to capitalize on its fantastical setting. The concept earns some novelty points for its specific mashup of genres, though the execution dulls that edge. The ending resolves messily with an action climax that feels rushed and unsatisfying, leaving the world's larger mythology frustratingly unexplored.