Metacritic reviews

This ambitious, yet astonishingly well-executed Netflix tentpole directly benefits from the way Ayer’s gritty, streetwise sensibility grounds Landis’ gift for creating an elaborate comic-book mythology.

Bright could have been something truly special if it had slowed down the pace of its narrative to allow for a fuller exploration of its engaging world.

For all its flaws, Bright is still a headlong leap into a bracingly different new world. Cinema could do with more of that.

Neither a satisfying treaty on diversity and 'race' wars, nor a fulfilling fantasy, it derails at the end of the first act with a confusing moment of anti-heroism, and never recovers.

Ultimately, the biggest problem with Bright is that it squeezes nudity, profanity and blood into the kind of dopey adventure that should be aimed more at adolescents — right down to its simplistic lessons about tolerance.

There may be no more unexpected (or damning) faint praise for David Ayer’s new movie Bright than this: It made me wish I was watching “Suicide Squad” instead.

The finished product, though plenty embarrassing, isn't quite involving enough to merit the kind of pile-on mockery that greeted Ayer's DC Comics abomination Suicide Squad.

There is a whiff of an interesting idea in there, but it is buried in tedious scenes lacking clear direction, endless generic (and poorly lit) shoot-outs, and cringeworthy sequences of allegedly witty banter. This movie is an absolute wreck.

From the director of “Suicide Squad” and the writer of “Victor Frankenstein” comes a fresh slice of hell that somehow represents new lows for them both — a dull and painfully derivative ordeal that that often feels like it was made just to put those earlier misfires into perspective.

Bright tries to create a unique and dynamic world with the juxtaposition of harsh police life, crime and modern life contrasted with this imaginary magical realm, but it’s contrived, unconvincing and most of all calamitously preposterous.