Green Lantern Review

My goal in these reviews is to offer as balanced a review as possible. Super fans such as myself are all too quick to tear a movie apart, instantly categorizing it as a success worthy of worship or the worst movie ever made. Following the highly enjoyable pair of Thor and First Class, Green Lantern has already generated a significant amount of bad buzz. But hey, I've been surprised before. I didn't have huge expectations for First Class, and found it to be highly enjoyable. Could Green Lantern do the same?

No.  Not even close.

I don't know if I can say a single good thing about this movie. If something worked or was interesting, it was dragged down by something else. Ryan Reynolds wasn't "bad" as Hal Jordan, but he was still miscast. Part of it isn't his fault: Hal's written as a complete tool. He's never cringe worthy with this material, but he doesn't take charge with it either. He just doesn't have that action hero quality or physical presence to make up for it. So they could easily have cast someone more fit for the part. I just don't think that would have saved it anyway.

I can say the same for almost the entire cast. Blake Lively is actually charming, and looks utterly gorgeous. She just exists as the most bland love interest of any superhero movie, and Lively just doesn't have the talent (yet) to make a bad character good. Or take Hector Hammond, the most bizarre waste of a villain in a comic book movie yet. Before you even know who he is, Hammond is whisked away by men in black suits and then quickly begins his transformation. Oh come on guys, you ripped off enough from Spider-Man already, you could at least rip off the idea of making your antagonist sympathetic or even interesting.

But how about all that science fiction stuff? Recent marketing campaigns have been focusing entirely on that, so it should be big, right? Well if you've seen the trailers and the Wonder-Con sneak peak, congratulations, you've seen the majority of the outer space stuff. Hal's stay on Oa is decidedly short, and he never ventures any further into the cosmos. None of the scenery is especially memorable and all feels somewhat familiar, and not from the comics. And if you were hoping to see the Corps. in action, you'll be disappointed. Literally all they do is point their rings the sky and chant. You never get a sense for what these Lanterns do from day to day, since the only threat the Corps has faced is a once in a lifetime apocalyptic threat.

And the three key members are kinda meh. The ever-talented Geoffrey Rush is resigned to a plot exposition device, filling our hero in on the mysteries of the cosmos. Which is odd, because wasn't Hal just uploaded with a full database of info on the galaxy? I would have thought the Guardians of the Universe would have earned a mention in it. Kilowog is somewhat boring and exists to give our hero a quasi-montage of training, which is a shame considering I just named him "Greatest Green Lantern". Mark Strong as Sinestro suffers the same problem as the rest of the cast. Poor script and dialogue give him nothing to work with, and he never comes off as more than a minor character.  And do they really want him to be a villain in the sequel? I can't see how this character, personality or story wise, could suddenly start ravaging the Corps. They portray him as too loyal without any of the hidden menace you'd need from a future villain. And the after the credits revelation comes out of nowhere.

So what made the story quite so bad? Filled with exposition and a classic case of "telling, rather than showing", it serves as a joyless, humorless adventure. Thor didn't have a perfect story, but was just so much damn fun you could get over it. So much of the dialogue was about fear and will power that were just blanket statements. We're never shown this difference and are just told it. And then Hal has his magic transformation into a courageous warrior, which happens in the blink of an eye once Carol Ferris tells him he needs to overcome fear rather than be without it. You thought Thor had a quick transformation? Hal's happens in less than a second. Nothing interesting every really happens, and the pacing is all over the place. And a downright awful musical score just sucks any wonder from the picture. What happened to the music from the trailer?

And special effects? If you're going to have weak story, at least give us some pretty to look at. Partly due to poor execution and partly due to flawed design, they feel worthless. Occasionally, they look actively terrible. Parallax in particular makes Galactus cloud seem cool. He's an awkward cluster of tentacles and junk with an ugly head.

Some movies are worth checking out just for the sake of seeing them. This isn't one of them. Stay the hell away from this one. It's a painful waste of two hours, and if enough people don't see it then maybe we can dodge a sequel. Too bad the same writing crew is already working on it.