Set It Up Is A Delightful Romantic Comedy With Two Awesome Lead Performances

Netflix is coming up on the third year anniversary of their big push into creating original films, an initiative that began with Beasts of No Nation. In that time, Netflix has gotten a whole bunch of movie stars like Brad Pitt and Will Smith to headline their various high-profile motion pictures, but aside from Bright (which really became more of a cosplay staple and internet punching bag than anything else), none of these movies have really garnered all that much attention, a pity for gems like Blue Jay, Mudbound or 6 Balloons. But two weeks ago today, Netflix released their first original film to really take the public by storm and it was one not based on exceptionally well-known source material or starring big names or even carrying a bunch of splashy visual effects.

Mute Silences All of It's Potential

In their 28 month long period of doing feature films, Netflix has released a bunch of high-quality smaller-scale films like The 13th, Blue Jay and Mudbound that show the streaming service is quite capable of putting out some top-notch cinema. If only such quality extended to their attempts to release more high-profile blockbuster fare, as those (admittedly few) attempts have fared quite poorly. Bright was, of course, a disaster and now comes another subpar bigger-budgeted effort from the studio in the form of Mute, which hails from director Duncan Jones, a man responsible for two of the best science-fiction films (Moon and Source Code) of the last decade.

Turn The Lights Out On The Dismal Netflix Blockbuster Bright

The central premise of Bright is so good. A buddy cop action movie but with fantasy elements? How cool! The mind reels at the possibilities one can come up with for making a feature film centered around that premise considering just how expansive of a canvas one has to play with in terms of famous creatures, items and types of people associated with fantasy storytelling. Bright decides to just go for the most generic and non-fun version of its premise imaginable. Those expecting to have some good o'l R-rated cop movie fun here will leave wondering why such an exciting premise had to be executed in such a grimy and monotonous manner.

Trailers For New David Ayer And Bong Joon-Ho Movies Give A Peek Into Netflix's Ambitious 2017 Movies Slate

This image of Jake Gyllenhaal on the set of Okja will be my new go-to image of Jake Gyllenhaal for any occasion

Thus far, Netflix's forays into original cinematic offerings have not been greeted with the same level of audience adoration nor awards attention that their TV fare has. In 2017, it looks like they're very much trying to change that, with practically each week this week bringing some sort of new Netflix movie To boot, those new Netflix feature films are high-profile offerings starring the likes of Lily Collins (To The Bone). Jason Segel & Rooney Mara & Robert Redford (The Discovery), Melissa Leo (The Most Hated Woman In America), Henry Cavill (Sand Castle), Alexander Skarsgard (Mute) and Brad Pitt (War Machine).