Now, I should preface this by saying I knew going into this movie that it was going to be bad. I saw on rottentomatoes.com that it had an average review of 25%...which, when out of 100%, is pretty bad. I have gone to see worse movies before, and honestly, I was kind of hoping my expectations would be so low that it would impress me and I would walk out thinking 'well, that wasn't so bad. It was actually kind of good!'...wow. I have never been so wrong about a movie in my entire life.
Let me also say that I am a comic book fan. Suuuure, that's a little nerdy, but it also means I've read a lot of the Green Lantern background. They used character names, and villains and alluded to a sequel....but, my goodness, this movie was so bad.
The GOOD things about this movie are so few and far in-between that I shall talk about them first to get them out of the way. First of all, Ryan Reynolds. I always thought he was a good actor, and he has a certain charm about him that makes him likable, to ANY audience member. It's this charm that saves Green Lantern from being one of the worst comic book of all time...heck, it saves it from being one of the worst movies, period. Hal Jordan, the character he plays, is supposed to be stoic and serious with a touch of humour, and Reynolds pulls it off very well. Of course, if you've seen X-Men Origins: Wolverine, you know that he plays Wade Wilson/Deadpool, and in the former half of THAT movie, you'll see that Ryan Reynolds was born to play a smarmy character such as Deadpool, the 'Merc with a Mouth'. ANYway, back to GL; he was great, but, really....the role/dialogue/everything else failed him. Blake Lively had nothing to do as the love interest other than sit there and look hot...and, guess what, she performed that role to perfection. Honestly, she is gorgeous, and if I ever met her, I would probably faint. For the record, the only other people I would faint if I met would be Harrison Ford and, obviously, Tom Brady. The last good thing was Mark Strong, who played Sinestro. I'm not saying Sinestro was good, because he wasn't, but Mark Strong is a fantastic actor, and from the dialogue he said, he really came across as the powerful, serious leader that I always imagined him to be. It's the role that failed him here, as he was largely unimportant, and....well, it was just disappointing. They used him for an OBVIOUS setup in an after-the-credits scene, and if you know anything about Green Lantern, I'm sure you know what I mean. Hint: it has to do with the colour yellow.
I'm kind of getting into the bad things, so I'll just do it. My main problem with the movie was that there were so many unnecessary things. The villain on Earth was unnecessary...and the use of Parallax was butchered. Parallax, an entity made of energy that IS fear itself, is reduced to a cloud of black smoke that roars and yells, and when it inexplicably changes course from Oa (the home of the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians) to go to Earth, to wipe out ONE Green Lantern....Hal beats it in about five minutes of screen-time by just reciting the GL oath. I was sorely reminded of 'Clash of the Titans', when after the entire movie of building up to the Kraken being released upon the world to teach the humans a lesson, Perseus beats it in about three minutes. It really sucked, in BOTH cases. Finally, to go back to Sinestro...he was criminally underused. It's not a spoiler to say that he eventually becomes a bad guy; he advocates for the creation of a yellow ring from the very first time we see him, and when he does create it? It gets locked away and we see it once in the after-the-credits scene I was talking about before. What a load of crap.
I think I just lost all interest in the movie where Hal Jordan, as the GL, goes and meets Blake Lively (whose character is named Carol Ferris), after he had saved her life the night before. Let's be real here for a second. His mask covers his eyes and part of his cheekbones. Otherwise, he looks EXACTLY THE SAME. I have the same issue with Superman (actually, the issue with him is bigger, since Superman DOESN'T WEAR A MASK, Clark Kent wears glasses and that's the only difference), but here it's also ridiculous. I'm surprised that Carol Ferris didn't recognize Hal Jordan the moment she laid eyes on him, to be quite honest...but I'm happy she didn't just completely miss that point, as she finally did. The specific point I lost interest was when he FINALLY recognized him, after a long conversation, and says 'Hal?! No way!'....I couldn't even restrain myself from saying 'This movie is shit.' in a really loud voice...and the saddest part was that people didn't tell me to shut up, a lot of people actually laughed. You know why? BECAUSE I WAS RIGHT.
A lot of the times, I can come out of a movie and say 'you know, that movie was bad, but it had its moments.' Not for Green Lantern. I feel sad, because it's such a good chance for DC to make a good movie for one of their huge characters other than Batman, and they not only squandered it, but they wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on this piece of garbage...and they took 10$ from me that I'll never get back, along with 2 hrs of my life that I'll also never get back. This is easily up there with one of the worst comic books out there (X3 and Spiderman 3 come to mind for recent competition for bad superhero movies), and it's sad. I fervently hope that any of my friends (or really, anyone) who reads this never goes to see that movie until you can be sure it won't cost you anything other than time...and even then, be care. Time is precious, and this movie sure wastes a lot of it. (oh, right, a rating out of 10. Let's go with....2.5/10, and keep with the rottentomatoes ranking. What garbage.)
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