Tag Archives: movie review

General

A Bright Future

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Netflix released Bright starring Will Smith the other day (Dec 22nd), and I found some unexpected free time today where a 2-hour movie could fit.

Vanity Fair reviews Bright here
“Be nice if you could do some of that magic $#!+ right about now…”

The above image comes from Vanity Fair, who are far less flattering in their review than me. I might be biased, wanting a movie like this to work more than I care about whether it deserves a place in a cinematic hall of fame.

Here are my spoiler-free thoughts:

Bright is a good movie–not amazing, not without some obvious faults–and I look forward to more of this fresh setting and novel concept.

I say “novel” because I can’t think of a modern fantasy movie that’s worth its entry fee. In books, video games, and tabletop RPGs, modern fantasy has long been a thing. Shadowrun springs to mind, though Bright lacks the cyberpunk flair.

Pros: Will Smith is Will Smith. He can’t help but shine. I already mentioned the novelty of the setting, but I like that they pointed to a history they didn’t bother to fully explain. It feels more like a real world that way, and the few times they slipped exposition into the dialogue didn’t feel too painful or forced. Bright touches on the expected themes: racism, privilege, tensions between communities and police forces. For the most part, I think it does this believably and effectively. The action is entertaining, a nice mixture of magic and gunfire. Most of all, Bright scratches an itch I didn’t know I had and makes me want another installment without leaving big questions unresolved. It’s almost like a good pilot for a series, and instead, you’ll get another sequel with Will Smith and presumably the rest of the main characters.

Cons: It felt like a really slow build. I didn’t really care about what was happening until a good half-hour in. Some of the “reveals” felt all too obvious and expected. You’re probably going to call a few things as soon as you realize they are part of a subplot, and you’ll be right. I guess it IS fantasy so certain things are going to go the main characters’ way, or else we wouldn’t be reading about them. This is Tolkien in the modern world, not Game of Thrones… not that Tolkien is a bad thing, but I know it’s not what some people want. Somehow our heroes survive fights with creatures that can breeze through LAPD SWAT teams. The villains felt a little hammy and made some really stupid decisions–or failed to take action when they should have. (Kill your foe, don’t gloat.) Finally, either magic is relatively tame unless you have sweet gear, or nobody really unloaded their magic skill… and I have no way of knowing which is the case.

None of that detracted enough to make me regret watching, and I heartily recommend a viewing. However, I’ll caveat that with…

Bright is definitely for mature viewers. Depending on your taste in films, you might balk at the strong language throughout the film, or the frequent graphic violence, although the latter is more tame than what makes it to the big screen. The characters do enter a strip bar at one point and breasts are shown.

My two cents. Your mileage may vary.

If you watched it, what do you think? Let me know how wrong I am in the comments section.

Writing

Cinema Sins

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There’s a YouTube channel I admit (with some guilt) I find entertaining.

Cinema Sins posts clips from various movies, and they count up the number of terrible clichés, plot holes, and cheesy lines to give the movie a score. Needless to say, this game is like golf: the less points the better.

Their slogan is that no movie is without sins.

I watched the “review” of Divergent, which did not fair well. And while some of the critique might be valid, I began to wonder about what exactly they’re going for.

On the positive side, I can appreciate the criticism as a useful tool. As an aspiring novelist, they show great examples of what I might be doing wrong–instances where I might think “Wow, that’s cool” but then realize it was cool in those 15 action movies that each used the same scenario, plot twist, or snappy retort.

But on the other hand, I have to ask: What movie are these guys putting out there? What great amazing story are they writing?

Because it’s easy to sit back and look at everything Hollywood releases, tallying up sins and saying “Oh that’s so lame, that’s so overdone.” But it’s another story when you’re trying to create something unique, something special. (And arguably none of our stories are really all that unique. Most follow structures we’ve learned from other stories.)

Regardless of how many "sins" Cinema Sins finds in your plot.
Regardless of how many “sins” Cinema Sins finds in your plot.

I can’t help but think of the Roosevelt quote, always a great reminder:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

So there.

 

Ok, now I’m gonna go back into my draft and change some overdone plot twists.