By Travis Johnson
David Ayer, director of the Oscar-winning Suicide Squad,* re-teams with Will Smith for the Netflix Original Bright, a down and dirty look at the mean streets of modern Los Angeles, ala his previous works, End of Watch and Training Day.
Except there is magic and his partner, Joel Edgerton, is an orc. An Orc, guys.
Let’s go to the official synopsis:
“Set in an alternate present-day where humans, orcs, elves and fairies have been coexisting since the beginning of time, this action-thriller directed by David Ayer (Suicide Squad, End of Watch, writer of Training Day) follows two cops from very different backgrounds. Ward, a human (Will Smith), and Jakoby, an orc (Joel Edgerton), embark on a routine night patrol that will alter the future of their world as they know it. Battling both their own personal differences as well as an onslaught of enemies, they must work together to protect a young female elf and a thought-to-be-forgotten relic, which in the wrong hands could destroy everything.”
This really does look like fun, doesn’t it? Will gets a sword, and you just know that they’re gonna use the fantasy races to comment on contemporary American race relations, just like Alien Nation did with, well, aliens back in the day. Interestingly, Edgerton’s Loving director, Jeff Nichols, is about to remake that. Actually, what it really reminds us of is the long-running tabletop RPG Shadowrun, which put magic and fantasy races in a William Gibson-esque cyberpunk world – except these days you don’t need to imagine a future high-tech dystopia. But you guys are probably too cool to know about that.
Bright hits Netflix – who are clearly making a serious attempt at subverting the traditional distribution model, by the way – this December.
*We are never gonna get used to saying that.
