Bright: Surprisingly …

16th January, 2018.

Which is very true, actually: Sonic the Hedgehog 2* is rather frustrating.

Especially if you’re stuck on one section: desperately trying, with all your might, to get past a bit that’s rapidly filling up with water.   Entirely digital, in-game, water.

Whilst a countdown goes off, threatening music plays … 

Before your little blue avatar drowns.

Digitally, obviously.

 ~≈§≈~

At any rate, and all frustration aside?

All frustration aside, I actually fancied siting in with something to watch.

Granted, I’ve still got a pile of TV box-sets I want to watch.

But I also was more tempted by a film: either rented from iTunes.

Or something from Netflix.

As you might possibly have guessed?

I went with something from Netflix.

And?

I’m thinking Bright is pleasantly surprising.

~≈§≈~

Set in an alternative present, Bright shows us an alternative Los Angeles: where humans, orcs and elves live side by side.

Rather unhappily: elves are in posh gated communities, and orcs, humans, and everyone else … ?

Lives in whatever ghetto they can afford.

Much like the grizzled LAPD officer, Daryl Ward (Will Smith): a man much annoyed … 

After his new partner, rookie Nik Jakoby (Joel Edgerton) manages to get him, Ward, shot.

When Ward goes back on duty, after recovering?

Is when Ward and Jakoby’s problems really starts.

The pair get called to what turns out to be a safe house for an extremist group called the Shield of Light.

One with lots of several dead bodies, two magically cremated bodies, a slowly dying elf assassin, embedded in a wall.

And a live elf girl called Tikka: a lone elf girl who seemingly speaks only Elvish … 

And whose only possessions are the clothes on her back, and a a nuclear weapon that grants wishes.

A wand …

~≈§≈~

Now, “Pleasantly surprising, Paul?”, I hear you ask.

Yes, actually.

I don’t know quote what I was expecting, from Bright.

Something comedic, along the lines of Fresh Prince, or his performance in Independence Day: and something I know Smith is more than capable of.

What I got … ?

Was a cop drama: with a surprising amount of grit, and plausibility.

Yes, there’s humour: any film that features an odd couple — and quite an odd couple — will have it’s comedic elements.

But?

I’ve read near enough everything the late, Sit Terry Pratcheet wrote, during his life.

Something I remember him saying, in more than a Few of the novels, was that the Discworld was a ‘world, and mirror of worlds.’

Yes, everything was back-to-front.

But, yes: that helps us to see the real-world better.

Bright is another such mirror.

Yes, it’s tells us there’s heroes.

But, yes: it also tells us there’s reasons we need heroes.

It tells us people are people, whatever we happen to look like.

And that sometimes?

All the magic we need is a friend, whoever they are.

Yes, Bright is grittily dark.

Yes, it’s back-to-front.

But, yes and surprisingly, despite reminding us of our worlds corruption, graft and racism?

It’s very watchable … !

Bright
★★★☆

*        It, and the original Sonic the Hedgehog, are both available on the fourth — and later — generations of Apple TV.