Green Lantern

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Mark Strong, Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Robbins, Angela Bassett, Jay O. Sanders, Mike Doyle, Jon Tenney, Geoffrey Rush (voice), Michael Clarke Duncan (voice), Clancy Brown (voice)
Directed by: Martin Campbell
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Adventure
2011

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is given a mysterious power ring by a dying alien. He becomes a Green Lantern, part of an intergalactic peace keeping force. When a fearsome enemy threatens Earth, he must fight to save his planet.

Review:

Tim: I was excited to see Green Lantern, although I admit the poor reviews worried me a bit. I wasn't overly familiar with the comic books, but I was excited to see a superhero film that was on a much larger scale the typical ones. The world of Green Lantern is an expansive, intergalactic one, and I was interested to see how it was presented on the big screen. Unfortunately, in this case, the reviews were right. This is a movie that doesn't do anything egregiously wrong, but feels flat throughout the film. It was a disappointment.

I'm very surprised that Martin Campbell gave us such a bad film. He's one of the best action directors today, and I tend to enjoy his films. Not so here. The film feels boring, clumsy, and overall, it was difficult to get into the characters or the story. I did not have much fun watching this movie.

I really disliked the tone of the film. I enjoy Ryan Reynolds and believe he is a great actor for comic book movies, but I think he was miscast here. We're watching a film about alien police offers- any introduction of silliness threatens to undermine the whole thing. I would have liked to see this movie take a more serious approach. Yes, we're talking about alien police officers, but make me believe it's important and serious. Reynolds isn't a serious actor- his comedic timing is too good to ignore, and yet, he makes the film feel too much like a comedy. That hurts the overall quality and our ability to take the movie seriously.

Reynolds is as good as he could be in the role, but I still maintain that he was miscast. I wanted to see a more focused, restrained actor in the role. I'm not a fan of Blake Lively, but I suppose she wasn't horrible. She didn't add a great deal, though. Peter Sarsgaard was fine, although his role was a bit strange. I thought it was odd that Tim Robbins was in this film. I like him as an actor, but I didn't understand what attracted him to the part. I suppose he brought some credibility to the film, but I didn't love him here, either. I thought Mark Strong was a great choice to play Sinestro, and was one of the best characters in the film.

I don't want to spend a great deal of time on the special effects, because they have been criticized quite a bit already. I'll say that I did not love them. Most of the criticism has been leveled at Hal Jordan's suit. The decision to make the suit CGI was controversial, and for good reason. I think we're still a few years away from the technology to make the suit look truly believable. At times, I thought it looked pretty silly and gave the entire a film an animated, comic feel. You might think that is preferred for a superhero movie, but it made the movie feel a bit silly. I would have liked to see how a regular suit looked. The special effects weren't incredible on the alien world, either. The movie should have portrayed this as an expansive, epic, beautiful sight. I thought the alien world appeared far too forgettable. It wasn't memorable in the least. For an example of how to depict an amazing, foreign world, see Thor's Asgard.

There was nothing that Green Lantern did exceptionally wrong. It's simply that there wasn't much to get excited about. I wanted this movie to work because the character is cool and somewhat unique in the superhero world. We should have had a trilogy of exciting movies, but this one might have stopped that whole thing before it even begins. I tried to like this film, but there's just too little here. This is a disappointing, lackluster movie.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6


If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Superman Returns