This is the 3rd Super Hero movie to come out this summer & so far the only one I've seen. I don't get out the movies very often (Last Movie I saw in theaters was Scott Pilgrim) but a friend asked me if I wanted to go. So, I went. I would like to go see X-Men: First Class. I'm still unsure about Thor (which has been out for sometime) & Captain America (which comes out next month). Going into this movie there wasn't that made me really excited to see it. I've never really been a big fan of Green Lantern but I was (kind of) interested in see how they'd translate it from page to screen. How did they do? eh. It's wasn't the best movie or the worse movie. It was ok. Did I feel I got my matinee movie price worth? I guess so.
From what I saw before I didn't really like art direction of the movie. It seemed too "dark" & the costume looked stupid. Well, the costume still looked stupid & the movie was a bit too dark. Also, what is with the eyes in this movie? If your in the Green Lantern uniform you will have weird looking eyes! Also, this movie really liked it's close ups' which I found odd. I don't need the extreme close up of someone's face! The extreme close up is almost never needed! Also, I found some of the special effects shots to be poorly done/unfinished. I could easily tell they were fake. Is I know they were fake but they shouldn't look that way.
I felt it tried to explain/introduce to many people & things. In the end didn't really seem to explain anything or anyone really well. It gave you enough information, most of the time. I also felt that their title character didn't seem to do much which is odd since he is the title character. If your main character doesn't even appear in your film until a few minutes into your film & those minutes were not filled with your movie's credits I think something might be wrong with your film.
This movie fell into something many Super Hero movies fall into: Let's just not have one villain but two! Why? Because two are so much better then one! There was Hector Hammond (who was under developed as a character & might as well been called a henchmen for all he did) & Parallax!
In the comics Parallax is seen as a giant bright yellow evil space bug, the sentient embodiment of fear traveling from world to world and causing entire civilizations to destroy themselves out of paranoia & a whole bunch of interesting stuff that would be to complicated to explain here. But in the movie it's a giant greyish black evil space octopus with a humanoid face doing some less interesting stuff like sucking the fear & their skeletons out of people to make it's self strong so it could seek out it's revenge on those that had wronged it! But at least it was a thing & not a menacing space cloud of Death that did nothing! (see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer's Galactus). I think starting your movie franchise with Parallax was a bad choice. Sure, Green Lantern doesn't have a great list of villains & his greatest foe was a good guy for whole movie but Parallax is only an interesting character after Hal Jordan has done a bunch of stuff. Parallax is your foe in Green Lantern 3 or 4, not Number 1. You can set him up as a super evil entity, mention him as a threat but don't use him. Let it build but you can now! SPOILERS: You threw him into the sun! But... that doesn't mean he's dead & might be back in Green Lantern 2: the Electric Boogaloo. :) And yes they did set up the sequel, you don't spend that much talking about another color ring without doing something with it.
Plus, there were a few too many "coincidence" in the movie that I think was just poor planing/writing & most of these seem to be based around Hector Hammond's character. Maybe if he was better developed they could have been worked out better. maybe.
How was Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern: fine but he wasn't Hal Jordan. He was Kyle Rayner (another Green Lantern from the comics) or some odd mix of Hal & Kyle. Reynolds just didn't seem to full pull of how I think a "Hal Jordan" should act.
So, high points & there were a couple: there were some funny jokes. The art direction was dark but nicely done. The relationship between Hal & Carol Ferris (played by Blake Lively) seemed real & was nicely played. The aliens looked cool (even if you didn't get to see much of them).
I think I've just read too many comic books & know the story lines too well to fully give into the movie. It's was an ok movie. It's not the worse Super Hero movie I've seen (That currently goes to the 1977 Doctor Strange which completely missed the mark).
What do I give this movie... Seeing at there are 9 Lantern Corps (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Black & White), I give it a 2 & half power rings out of 9.
Until next time: Stay Jazzy everyone!
- Brian
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