It’s fair to say new Netflix movie Bright hasn’t been a hit with critics. A cross between Lord of the Rings, Training Day and Alien Nation, with a dash of The Fifth Element thrown in for good measure, the film is set in a world where orcs, faeries and elves exist alongside humans. It stars Will Smith (human) and Joel Edgerton (orc) as mismatched cops, and has been called the worst film of 2017.
While we wouldn’t go that far, Bright is certainly a strange concoction, filled with some truly terrible lines of dialogue. With the following some of the very worst.
WARNING: Potential spoilers ahead. Also, it’s basically Tolkien with swears, so apologies for the bad language.
Opening words onscreen, attributed to The Great Prophet 7:15: “Only a Bright can control the power of the wand.”
Will Smith’s Daryl Ward, getting political in cringeworthy fashion: “Fairy lives don’t matter today.”
Serious stuff from Joel Edgerton’s Jakoby: “I’ve wanted to be a cop since I was a little kid. I have nothing else. My badge means more to me than the air I breathe.”
Ward, stating the bleeding obvious: “As far as I can tell a Bright came in, used the wand, and magicked everybody the f–k up.”
Ward, suggesting that Shrek exists in the Bright universe: “I need you to take your fat Shrek-looking ass back to your vehicle and drive the f–k home to Fiona.”
Lucy Fry’s Tikka, aka Basil Exposition: “They’re aiding the return of the Dark Lord so he can slaughter billions and enslave the survivors to serve him in a new age of Magic. They’re Inferni. They destroyed the Illuminati 100 years ago. I too am Inferni, but I escaped. The Shield of Light hid me. Liela gave an assassin her wand to kill me. But I got the wand from her. Keep it away from Liela. She mustn’t get her wand back. With it she can restore the Dark Lord’s power.”
More clumsy exposition, this time from Jakoby: “She brought me back from the dead. You have to accept the miracle. You and me are simple people. We mean nothing. People don’t write about us. But this don’t you see is like the time of heroes. Jirac was unblooded like me. An Orc that nobody cared about. He united the nine armies and they defeated the Dark Lord. He was a farmer who changed the world. They raised their blades to him, he was blooded in that very moment. He fulfilled the great prophecy Ward. I think we might be in a prophecy.”
Noomi Rapace’s Liela, with the film’s worst line, hands down: “I’m a warrior. A priestess. A lover. I am whatever my Lord needs me to be.”
Bright is currently streaming on Netflix.