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Watched it with the missus who hates Fantasy stuff, and she loved it. Though she said it would make a much better series as they could dig deeper into the world.

I was shocked. I liked it too but I wasn't expecting her to like it.

Wife and I watched it this evening. I thought the ending was a little kludgy but overall it was a decent movie. I wouldn't have felt cheated had I paid to see it in the theater. And that's about my max praise for any movie I've seen over the past 2-3 years.

I liked it. It's not an Oscar contender, but that's OK. It was an enjoyable flick at the end of the day.

I'm not what is going on with the critics. It is by no means the best movie of the year, but it is far from the worst. Considering trite like the emoji movie came out this year. It really feels like the critics are just bagging on it because it's from netflix.

The sequel has already been greenlit, so I assume this means that netflix has seen the viewer numbers, and catered to who matters, the audience, instead of the critics.

I imagine part of the reason for people dislike it is the writer, Max Landis has recently been implicated in a number of the 'dark side of Hollywood' type situations.

And, yeah, I really believe them. I've seen a decent number of interviews etc with him over the past few years and each and every time the guy has gotten my hackles up.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Lots of movie reviewers are slaughtering this - "the first movie designed by algorithm lol I are totes witteh cos it's on Netflix yeh" etc - and...yeah, I don't get it. Why they're so amped to gak on it I mean - it's not the greatest story ever put to film, but it was fun to watch with an interesting premise and did a solid job of combining cop movie and fantasy tropes, and I closed out the browser window actually interested to see what they do with the sequel.

I imagine it's because reviewers still believe themselves the reason for people heading out to watch movies. That they're the reason for putting people in the seats of massive movies based on their criticism and reviews alone.. Netflix kind of takes that sort of pseudo-power out of their hands.

I might be thinking into it a bit too much, but critics and user reviews tend to vastly differ alot nowadays.

Watched it this weekend, really enjoyed it. Agree the story itself wasn't the greatest, but really would love sequels and/or a series to expand upon the world. They gave a nice amount of background fluff and I wanna see more.

I was sad that I didn't see any dwarves, and I totally missed the Centaur cop, so now I have to watch it again.

My girlfriend had a hard time following what was going on at first, till I told her "It's lord of the rings only it takes place now instead of 1000 years ago" and then she got it. She didn't like the fairy bashing though, she thought it was mean.

 Compel wrote:
I imagine part of the reason for people dislike it is the writer, Max Landis has recently been implicated in a number of the 'dark side of Hollywood' type situations.

And, yeah, I really believe them. I've seen a decent number of interviews etc with him over the past few years and each and every time the guy has gotten my hackles up.

Not one of the negative reviews I've seen mentioned anything along those lines, and if a reviewer allows personal feelings about the writer to bias their critique of the film in terms of its form, content, and execution they should be sacked for being garbage at their job. EDIT: And this kind of "yeah he looks like a wrong'un to me" sentiment is exactly why some folk find the "just believe the accuser" push extremely worrying - human beings are gak judges of character in 99.99% of cases, the people who "get your hackles up" will turn out to be perfectly fine, normal, pleasant people nine times out of ten while the guy you really like and have a pint with after a round of golf on Thursday afternoons and who's a volunteer at the local foodbank could be a wife beating monster for all you know.

I would have felt perfectly happy if I had watched it in a theatre.

Watched it last week. it was ok.

Generic cop drama thing with a sprinkling of fantasy.

they could of removed the fantasy swapped the races, and changed the macguffin to almost anything else and it would of still worked.

 Sasori wrote:
I liked it. It's not an Oscar contender, but that's OK. It was an enjoyable flick at the end of the day.

I'm not what is going on with the critics.

I saw one review saying that Bright was "easily the worst movie of 2017", and I'm like... pump your brakes, kid. I didn't particularly love it, but worst movie of the world, where the feth did that come from.

I'd be interested in seeing a sequel because although I thought the main story wasn't great, they did do some very good worldbuilding and I think you could tell some really compelling stuff within it, even though they failed to do so this time.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Not one of the negative reviews I've seen mentioned anything along those lines, and if a reviewer allows personal feelings about the writer to bias their critique of the film in terms of its form, content, and execution...

Roger Ebert wrote a lot of books which expanded on film reviews, and I loved reading them because, well, he's a very good writer and I love the movies. One of the things that he said that really stuck with me was that if a film reviewer was good at their job, you could tell from the review if you would like the film even if they didn't.

Having watched it, its nowhere near as awful as reviewers made it out. I was interested at first, then thought I'd give it miss after it was panned. Then I remembered Max Landis wrote it, so gave it a go.

I'll need to watch out for commentary by him on it. Personally I wouldn't mind seeing the film expanded upon a bit, however that's probably unlikely. If Max if wrote a comic based on it I'd just gobble that up (his Green Valley series was pretty good).


Oh, but on the negative reviews. Others have said that the negative spin may be down to it being a Netflix release, and so critics are against it as it could "kill traditional media". I doubt that of course. Screen Junkies also gave the film a meh review, and they're friends with Max Landis. However, if there's any talk about shenanigans on his part then that could have coloured their review as well (seeing as they fired one of their staff this year over abuse claims). He was my favourite contestant when they were still doing their Movie Fights show.

The wife and I really enjoyed it. Action was good, and the movie was genuinely funny at times. That bit where the Orc turned on what sounds like Cannibal Corpse and he says its the most beautiful love song ever written made me laugh

Yeah I loved how death metal was orc music

I may have to rewatch it. One thing's confusing me.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
I may have to rewatch it. One thing's confusing me. The guy who was shooting the cops from the window at the Shield of Light base. Was he a Shield of Light member who somehow survived the Inferni assassin's attack? The assassin came alone from what I can tell. If he was a Shield of Light member then why was he shooting at the cops (and not helping the elf)? Confusing.

...That and I was wondering why he kept his head up when he was reloading? I guess it can be handwaved away that he didn't, but as a later scene shows the building's walls were made from wood so they got him anyway (uh, those walls were supposed to be wooden right, as when one of the elves busts through one near the end planks go flying...).

 Desubot wrote:

 Wyrmalla wrote:
I may have to rewatch it. One thing's confusing me.

Spoiler:

The guy who was shooting the cops from the window at the Shield of Light base. Was he a Shield of Light member who somehow survived the Inferni assassin's attack? The assassin came alone from what I can tell. If he was a Shield of Light member then why was he shooting at the cops (and not helping the elf)? Confusing.

...That and I was wondering why he kept his head up when he was reloading? I guess it can be handwaved away that he didn't, but as a later scene shows the building's walls were made from wood so they got him anyway (uh, those walls were supposed to be wooden right, as when one of the elves busts through one near the end planks go flying...).

Spoiler:

I dont recall that guy being a shield of light

i was thinking he was inferni since the elf was also inferni and just managed to jack the mcguffin

Finally watched it. Overall I really enjoyed it, in fact I will be watching it again which is quite rare for me with movies.

I did find Nick to be a little too naive for my tastes. Then again he have more knowledge of magic, history and languages than Ward.

I loved the fact that the Fed's were quite happy to let them get on with their lives rather than simply dropping them.in a black hole somewhere.

The negative comments had already started on Facebook before the film came out, oddly.

Enjoyable blockbuster sillyness, might be nice if we get a follow up TV anthology show to broaden out the world (and stick in The Rock cos Shadowrun)

Not entirely sure what is going on with movie critics here. I mean, it doesn't deserve an Oscar or anything, but I did like it. Even suggested it to a few friends. I look forward to the sequel.

I think a lot of critics and groups have lost touch with other viewers. I saw a Nerdist article earlier saying how Batman and Robin was an underrated film. I just don't think they care anymore.....

Will Smith attracts a lot of negative reviews at this point as well.

I could see the arguement that Batman and Robin was an underrated childrens film or drinking game film. It still doesn't mean I can force myself to sit through it again.


Anyhow, I do think #metoo and the 'Max Landis' factor probably has a lot of impact on it.

Several people I personally have a great deal of respect have talked about some experiences around him and yeah, it did fit in with the gut instincts I had from seeing him in interviews.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Not entirely sure what is going on with movie critics here. I mean, it doesn't deserve an Oscar or anything, but I did like it. Even suggested it to a few friends. I look forward to the sequel.

I think a lot of critics and groups have lost touch with other viewers. I saw a Nerdist article earlier saying how Batman and Robin was an underrated film. I just don't think they care anymore.....

I think at some point, beyond the normal human tendency to dogpile, it's also being able to have a witty diss that is turned into a pull quote somewhere else.

I just started watching it right now. My initial excitement has waned with the lockerroom scene where literally every Caucasian with a speaking role is racist towards the Orc cop and the only tolerant one is Will Smith.

 warboss wrote:
I just started watching it right now. My initial excitement has waned with the lockerroom scene where literally every Caucasian with a speaking role is racist towards the Orc cop and the only tolerant one is Will Smith.

Yes it does play heavily on racial bias at times but to be honest Ive experienced that kind of BS in real life. Ive been the only white guy saying "hey can we cool it on the race bashing?" several times. Ive also had simular experiences about gay bashing too. It does happen though I do feel on the fence with this subject because on one hand its a fantasy movie, I want to forget my world and watch fantasy. But its also a pretty good platform to show that kind of subject matter, kind of a we exclude differences regardless of what that difference is

To be fair, they also had Latins, Asians and I think the black gangsters at the beginning had a few disparaging things to say about the Orc as well, so its not as if the white characters were the only racist (speciest?) ones.
I couldn't help but think of Discworld when I was watching that exchange. "Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green."

There was no reason to devolve into racial stereotypes within the human race when they've got other actual species and their differences to focus on. It's enough to use allegories for minorities (whether racial or religious) with the various fantasy races; it's unnecessary to additionally pander to skin color stereotypes as well. At least with latinos and blacks, they had a single positive character respectively with Will Smith and Rodriguez to show that they're not all bad. Can you think of a single caucasian human in that movie that was positively portrayed? All it would have taken was a single positive portrayal of a Caucasian (whether cop or otherwise) or even just a "diverse" group of cops in that lockerroom being racist towards the ork to not make it so obvious. Also, I posted the previous post right after pausing the movie not long after that scene which is why I didn't comment on the rest of the movie until now.

Watching the movie right now. I'm really enjoying it.

I haven't trusted what a single professional review has had to say in a long time. This just further cements my opinion how out of touch they've gotten.

Maybe is because here in Spain we don't have that political enviroment, but I had 0 problems with the lockeroom scene. In this kind of fantasy settings I don't separate humans. If a human is being racist, is just reflecting a racist human, it doesn't matter his skin colour when you have orcs, centaurs, elfs, etc...
The female officer was assian, and racist towards the orc too. And she was the only assian in the movie that I noticed. Everyone was racist towards the orc, even Will Smith during the first half of the movie.

Yeah... they made a point that human racism was still a thing when Rodriguez made a comment about being Mexican.