Movie Review: Green Lantern

Put most simply; Green Lantern is the origin story of a hero and a film adaptation of the DC Comic series. Put most accurately; Green Lantern could be held up as the perfect example of theme bashing an audience while making them watch actors pretend and leaving them to bleed in a puddle of the movie's rancid dialogue.

Irresponsible test fighter pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is chosen by a green ring to be a guardian of earth's sector of the universe against all bad things. Luckily for the earth, this comes at just about the same time as an embodiment of fear starts sucking up the essences of the universe's inhabitants. The guardians of the universe teach him how to use his ring, and about the awesome power of will. At the same time, his wing-lady Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) begins to pressure him to be more responsible.

Green Lantern opens with a narration about the history of the universe and those who protect it. There is a narrated summary of willpower; the most powerful force in the universe. It is literally in the first twenty five seconds of the movie that the writers, or should I say "writers", Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim, and Michael Goldenberg, start beating the audience on the head with the not even a bit veiled theme. Since I am not a complete moron, and I understand English, by minute 5 I knew how the movie would end as well as gained everything from the movie that it had to offer.

Unfortunately it took another one hundred five minutes for the beatings to end. Willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; willpower makes us act, fear is bad; - boring and annoying right? Now imagine that for nearly two hours.

Like spikes on the theme club, there is no shortage of half baked, half developed, semi-intelligible plot points, movers, and story lines. I suspect the "writers" and director thought that if they crammed a lot of typical super hero movie plots into one movie they would score some points with the audience. Instead it comes across as a complete lack of focus and makes relating emotionally to the movie impossible. All this wrapped in a horribly animated packaging.

I am pretty sure the animation could have been worse, in 1982. There is absolutely no excuse for the painfully unrealistic computer generated effects. It is a cinematic sin to animate things poorly that can easily be done on a set without a synthetic stand in. Green Lantern's director Martin Campbell could not do enough Hail Marys in his lifetime to make up for all of the sins he committed in this movie.

I get the feeling that Martin Campbell may have been trying to give us the full comic book feeling, but he does not fully commit. As a consequence I could never suspend my disbelief. It was not a world of whimsy separate from my own, nor was it my world. It was neither and both.

The worst example is the suit Hal wears when he puts on the ring and becomes a Green Lantern. The wholly computer generated suit is so bad, it is impossible to forget it is there. It is impossible not to notice. Watching the film when the suit is on screen is as comfortable as if he was wearing a picture of the world's ugliest baby.

Even the world's most homely infant could not keep the audience's attention if the acting is captivating. Alas, I spent most of the movie with my attention shifting trying not to shutter at the hideous spawn and rolling my eyes the second rate acting delivering painfully trite lines.

To modify a memorable scene in the movie to succinctly summarize my advice to you; In the brightest day, in the darkest night, avoid this movie with all your might.