Green Lantern

Original design, and much better in my opinion.

So, where to begin? I guess with a quick summary. It starts with a short summary of the history of the Green Lantern Corps narrated by the greatest Green Lantern, at the time, Abin Sur played by Temuera Morrison. (The Clone troopers from Star Wars 2-3.) An unspecified time later a monster known as Parallax escaped his shiny green prison thanks to the combined fear of three stranded aliens. Parallax kills a few Lanterns before attacking Abin Sur, the Lantern that sealed him away. Sur escaped but is gravely wounded. He travels to Earth and his power ring is passed onto Hal Jordan, played by Ryan Reynolds. While Jordan trains with his ring, at the same time a friend from his childhood, Hector Hammond portrayed by Peter Sarsgaard, is infected with a bit of Parallax after autopsying Sur’s body. Jordan has to learn to use the immense power of the Lantern Ring in time to stop an insane Hammond and the monster Parallax.

This is a bad movie. I love the Green Lantern mythos. Hal Jordan is my favorite incarnation of the character. I think that Ryan Reynolds was a perfect choice to play Jordan. And despite this I can’t bring myself to like this movie. With its numerous problems in effects and storytelling, I could go on for days but I’ll focus on three of their biggest problems.

Such a waste of time.
Creepy, but a waste of time.

One, the storyline. This movie isn’t so much one story but three. The origin of Hal Jordan. The origin of Hammond. And the threat of Parallax. Maybe a really great director could have made this movie work but Martin Campbell isn’t that guy. Parallax is really a footnote at the beginning and end. Hammond is played up too much, and Hal Jordan as a GL is downplayed for Hal Jordan the guy with a fear issue. It’s just a mess. They set up Hector Hammond as a foil/rival for Jordan but 9 minutes in, the first scene their “childhood selves” share together makes it clear to me that he is 100% unnecessary. I read a movie review that stated that Sarsgaard performance is the only saving grace for the movie, but I couldn’t disagree more. He was a waste of time. I’d rather have had seen Jordan training on an alien world or seeing more of Parallax rather than this weird guy who wasn’t living up to Daddy’s expectations. That’s a plot point that has been done to death, please stop using it for a while. Also, they hammer the fear thing in worse than Batman Begins. After a while they use Fear in every other sentence. When you use a theme, symbol, or motif that much, it doesn’t strengthen it, it pisses the crap out of the audience that doesn’t want to hear that four letter F word one more time.

Earth GL's + Kilogow, it's a good group.

Two, the effects. The CGI is pretty bad for a late 00’s movie. Just about everything looks way too fake, and when the majority of the side characters are aliens of varying forms this is a problem. The worst offender is the guy that designed Hal Jordan’s GL uniform. I get that they were going for “the suit is part of you” BS which is why it kind of looks like muscle tissue, but it’s really bad. It just looks like Ryan Reynolds head, most of it any way, CGI’d onto a CGI body. And that stupid CGI mask. Would it have killed the effects team to go down to the nearest costume shop, buy a real green Domino mask, and bring it back? No, not it would not have. Same goes with his costume. Real black and green suit with CGI veining looks better than CGI suit. Also, making it so Hal doesn't get the suit until he gets to Oa is weird. In literally every other incarnation of any Lantern I've seen, the suit is automatic. Putting the ring on, when it's charged, makes the suits. Most Lanterns learn very quickly how to turn it on and off, but first time the ring is put on the suit comes with it. Can't even get the suit right. Though, I suppose when they can’t even get the Ring design right I guess can’t ask for much.

Finally, the changes to source material. Altering Hammond by changing his origin story so that his powers are connected to Parallax was a gigantic waste of time. It irritates fans, and just confuses non-fans. But it’s nothing compared to Parallax. Here, the immensely powerful cosmic entity that is the living embodiment of fear is retooled into a corrupted Guardian. Furthermore, they spliced his mind control though manipulating fear power with that of another GL villain, Larfleeze the Orange Lantern. The Orange light is the one that sucks up people’s souls, seriously it eats souls, and then gives its Lantern the power to make semi-intelligent construct clones of those it consumed. Sure, it makes Parallax look scary seeing all those bodies leaping out form him but look at the pic of the actual Parallax. Imaging that CGI monster, still scary right?

He eats fear, think about that for a second.

The good parts are few but worth mentioning. Ryan Reynolds is good as Hal Jordan, mostly. When they just let him be witty and charming he’s great. He’s serious when he needs to be, and he’s funny when he needs to be. It’s when he’s forced to make really bad speeches about Fear that he suffers. I think with a better director or script Reynolds would be to Hal Jordan as Robert Downey Jr. is to Tony Stark.

And while the characters didn’t look great, the choice of voice actors was very good. I liked Michael Clarke Duncan and Geoffery Rush as Kilowog and Tomar-Re, two of Jordan’s fellow Green Lanterns. Fish guy and mutant hippo, in case you aren’t great with names. In my mind the voices match better character designs as well as they bad ones.

This movie gets a D. It’s bad, really freaking bad, but has a few saving graces that keep it from complete refuse. The bad parts are awful and the good parts are…rare. I’m hopeful that when they finally get to the reboot it'll be a worthy adaption of the Green Lantern Corps, but I will have to wait for quite a long time. Until then, I suggest watching Green Lantern: First Flight. It is a much better GL origin story and even has Christopher Meloni, Eliot Stabler from Law and Order SVU, as Hal Jordan. Next time we'll see if I can clean this up a bit.

Not a good look man.

http://greenlantern.wikia.com/wiki/Green_Lantern_Power_Ring

http://movies.about.com/od/greenlantern/ig/Green-Lantern-Posters/Hector-Hammond-Poster.htm
 http://retcon-punch.com/2013/05/24/green-lantern-20/

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Lantern

 http://collider.com/green-lantern-movie-images-2/