Green Lantern0

We have had a lot of Superhero movies over the last couple of years. It has been a pleasant surprise that a lot of these so called “comic book” movies have been treated with the respect given to other literary material. We have two great Batman movies from DC and a whole bunch of Marvel characters popping up with their own quality features. Now we have DC’s first (Jonah Hex doesn’t count) real big follow up to The Dark Knight, Green Lantern.

While not as instantly recognizable as Batman or Superman or even Wonder Woman, Green Lantern is considered to be one of DC’s high tier characters. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Green Lantern is more of a giant sci-fi space opera like Star Wars then a superhero story. The Green Lantern Corps are basically space cops who travel the universe keeping the peace. They are fearless warriors who are given special rings that allow them to wield one of the most powerful energy sources in the universe, the emerald power of Will. These rings allow a person to create anything they can imagine. So basically Jedi Knights in green jumpsuits with bling. The big difference with Green Lantern as a hero is that despite spending a lot of time hanging out with Superman and the Justice League, he doesn’t really spend that much time on earth. He has a whole sector to look after and his time on earth is more like shore leave. Of course he has saved our planet on countless occasions, but that’s all part of the job.

This feature film adaptation of the character is the basic origin story. We have Hal Jordan who is the cocky yet fearless test pilot who is sought out by a dying alien to become the first ever green lantern from earth. He flies to Owa, learns to use the ring and in the end saves earth from destruction. So the real question is, with such a rich history of the character and the universe how does this new movie stack up? Well if I could sum up the movie in one word it would be, Meh. Sorry to say that it doesn’t live up to the other hero movies and I’d say that it has to be the weakest blockbuster this year. Now it’s not terrible; there are some cool flying scenes and fight sequences using the ring, but all up, it is pretty forgettable.

Ryan Reynolds is great and so is Mark Strong as Senestro, but there are large parts of this film that seem to forget about the whole “Green Lantern” thing. The film wants to stay on earth which is so boring and it feels like the characters are just phaffing around. Yes I understand you have daddy issues and you still have the hots for your ex, (It’s Blake Lively who wouldn’t) but there is a giant entity of fear that is going to destroy the universe, maybe you should focus on that for the moment. When we’re in space there are all kinds of aliens, training sequences and flying around, plus an imminent threat brings a sense of urgency to the movie. But back on earth if feels like day time TV with a whole lot of nothing. Not to mention that the dialogue is so cheesy in parts I literally groaned out loud. I know the whole thing is a crazy out there sci-fi but it still feels silly in parts. They even had a giant yellow space cloud with a cartoon head monologuing which believe it or not seems odd, even in this movie.

It’s sad because this movie has all the elements of a hit. It’s drawing from some great creative source material. We’ve got a hugely popular actor as the lead. A good director Martin Campbell who has made some great action films including two of the best Bond movies, rebooting the franchise twice (Goldeneye and Casino Royale). Plus Warner Brothers definitely had faith in the movie by giving it a budget of $200,000,000. Out of all the comic hero movies out this year, this was the one I was looking forward to most. So as you can imagine I was disappointed. Mainly because it had the potential to be great but lost it on the script. But this disappointment seems to be the consensus as the film has not done well at all. Even still WB has proclaimed that they were planning a sequel and intend to carry out this plan. WB said that Batman Begins didn’t do that great in the box office but it lead up to The Dark Knight which of course broke records and minds. But to compare this weak adaptation of a classic DC character to Batman Begins is a little insulting.

So in summing up, it has some great elements but the movie overall is a bit of a let down. So skip it if you like after all there are better movies playing at the moment (Rise of the Planet of the Apes). But if you are interested in the Green Lantern character there are two other movies to see. Firstly there is the animated feature Green Lantern: First Flight which is a much better telling of the origin story of Hal Jordan. The second animated film is Green Lantern: Emerald Knights which is a collection of stories from the history of the Green Lantern Corps. Both these are much better films and easy it find on DVD and Blu-Ray. Anyway that’s all from me this week. See you next time.

Rowan

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