“Green Lantern” Review

Because I feel like it, and to please my many, many fan(s?), here are my thoughts on DC Comics’ sole 2011 film, Green Lantern. Be warned: there are spoilers afoot, but nothing at all shocking.

Synopsis

The movie begins promisingly with a brief account of the history of the Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps, as well as Abin Sur’s fabricated for the film but still interesting conflict with Parallax. This introduction promises an epic “space police” movie that the mythos deserves, but sadly, it quickly delves into tedium.

After we’re essentially told “this is what Green Lanterns are,” we’re dropped into Hal Jordan’s story. Now, let me say this: Hal is not my favorite Green Lantern. When I was getting into comics over on the DC end of things, Hal had been out of commission for years and Kyle Rayner was the wielder of the ring. As such, I have a softer spot for Rayner (who I think Ryan Reynolds would have been much better at portraying), but I do realize that Hal is the “definitive Green Lantern.” But don’t tell that to Alan Scott.

Anyway, Hal is essentially a reeled-in “Van Wilder as a test pilot”, which is not at all how Hal Jordan has ever been written ever. Still, it’s been said that the character is about as interesting as watching paint dry, so this might be artistic license exercised for the better (SPOILER ALERT: it isn’t). So… after the very interesting first ten minutes, we’re treated to roughly forty minutes of the following, in no particular order: Ryan Reynolds taking his pants off; Carol Ferris’ call sign being “Sapphire;” Ryan Reynolds taking his shirt off; a half-baked Top Gun-esque backstory; Hal Van Jorlder receiving a power ring from a near-death Abin Sur; a nephews’ birthday party; the introduction of Hector Hammond, the most interesting character in the movie; Jay laughing at Blake Lively’s ~~acting~~ performance; and Ryan Reynolds taking off his pants and his shirt.

To the films’ credit, the actual origin part is fairly accurate: Abin Sur crashes on Earth, the ring seeks a new Lantern, and Hal Jordan is chosen. However, everything else in the movie is so poorly written and superfluous that it’s almost like they forgot that this movie was supposed to be awesome but decided that they wanted it to suck.

Eventually, Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a dorky college professor, is brought in to examine an “alien life form,” which is, of course, Abin Sur. He becomes infected with the yellow power of fear and slowly develops telepathic and telekinetic abilities. He’s truly a tragic character who is quite brilliant and seems like a fairly nice if somewhat quirky guy, but he becomes evil pretty much because the screenplay demands it. I’m not positive what his character’s motivation is in the comics, but here, he’s almost shoe-horned in as a villain. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Eventually, Hal Jordan is taken to Oa, the center of the universe (which I don’t think they ever actually say) and the home of the Corps, where he meets Tomar Re (voiced by Geoffrey Rush), Sinestro (Mark Strong), and my personal favorite, Kilowog (voiced by Michael Clarke Duncan). All three of these guys are much, much more interesting than Hal Jordan and his lack of courage and tendency to kind of be a prick, but they aren’t nearly as attractive so he gets top billing.

This part of the movie is also pretty awesome: we see the other thousands of Green Lanterns and Hal starts to learn how to use his ring. The training scene with Kilowog and, later, Sinestro is what you pay to see: Lanterns using their rings to make constructs. It’s fun, exciting, and everything you’d want in a Green Lantern film, except it only lasts about ten minutes.

This is running a little long, so I’ll summarize: Hal quits but still keeps the ring, saves some people at a party, then gets his identity discovered by Blake Lively (which was actually pretty funny); Parallax makes its way toward Oa but gets side-tracked to Earth, all while Sinestro tells the Guardians they should make a yellow ring to fight fear with fear; Hal pleads for the Guardians to help save his planet, but when they decline he offers to do it himself; he’s told he can’t; he does; becomes an awesome Green Lantern who even earns the respect of Sinestro, who, despite showing absolutely no inclination to do so the entire movie, puts on the yellow ring of fear and becomes a yellow lantern, foreshadowing being the bad guy in the next movie.

End of movie.

Thoughts

I’ll break this up into “positive” and “negative” sections. First, the positive aspects:

Like I said, everything that had to do with the Lantern Corps and Oa was awesome and incredibly well done.
The ancillary characters of Tomar Re and Kilowog really steal they show, even though they are in approximately three scenes.
Mark Strong is, well, strong, bold, and somewhat charismatic as Sinestro, three traits that the star of the movie lacks.
Despite the previews, most of the effects are pretty good. Hal’s mask looks really silly most of the time, but overall the CGI is solid if less than groundbreaking.

Now, the bad:

Ryan Reynolds. Now, he’s a likeable actor to be sure, and he does hint at being able to be a strong Hal Jordan, but he’s written poorly. In fact…
The script is just weak. It fluctuates in tone almost within the scene quite often, and the dialogue is just silly.
The direction, if only because it seems like Martin Campbell (Goldeneye, Casino Royale) really wanted to make an outer space epic but was forced to make a “character study” of Hal, which doesn’t work.
The under-use of characters who are performed well (pretty much every Lantern, Hammond, Amanda Waller, and even Hal as an actual hero), and the over-use of pointless (Hal’s friend) or poorly performed (Carol Ferris) characters.
And Blake Lively, who is so bad she deserves her own bullet point.

In conclusion…

The movie was a disappointment. There’s a good if not outright great movie in there, but Reynolds and Lively aren’t cast in it. Hopefully, the sequel will get it right and make Hal Jordan a secondary character within an ensemble piece of other Lanterns in the Corps.

Overall, I gave the movie a 6/10. If that seems high, it’s because what I liked I really, really liked and what they did well they did really well, but they didn’t do enough of it.

It’s funny, because I like the DC characters more, but I’ve enjoyed every Marvel film that’s come out this year more than this. Granted, DC still has the upper hand with Chris Nolan’s Batman films, and Marvel has been making more movies, but there are more good Marvel movies than DC films. The best of DC’s best is better than Marvel’s best, but still, they need to take more risks with lesser-known characters. I mean, really, how many people were clamoring for Iron Man or Thor movies?

Finally, you want a good Green Lantern movie? Check out the direct to dvd Green Lantern: First Flight and Green Lantern: Emerald Knights. They’re both solid takes on the character, and one even has Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordan!