To a point its about the execution.
I read through the first 60 reviews. There was some utter hyperbolic nonsense in them. A few decent points, like "It could have been better". But the problem is, many of them are merging the execution and the concept's inherent silliness or weirdness. And comparing everything to The Dark Knight. By and large, that's what is going on.
If I had to guess, I'd say the issue is that because the concept is silly, the movie has to work that much harder to appease critics. And, interestingly enough, its own fans. There's a lot of whining about realism and whatnot. The critics seem to find with formulaic films, as long as the films aren't TOO formulaic.
Here's some highlights, the main criticisms, if you will, from the Top Critics from Rotten Tomatoes:
"Filled with unintentionally laughable characters, intergalactic gobbledygook, sudden pacing shifts and a hero whose superpower is downright cartoony, this latest comic adaptation makes something like "Spider-Man" look both grounded and brilliant."
That doesn't sound like they value the source material much, or even bothered to give it much thought.
What, one might ask, is a Green Lantern? They would be a sort of galactic police force, ruled by the previously mentioned shrunken heads in long robes. Most of the characters look like refugees from the worst George Lucas film never made. There's even a fish with backward legs creature that gives off whiffs of Jar Jar Binks.
Jar Jar Binks?
And yet and this is the film's most essential flaw "Green Lantern" elects to be a space opera, spending far too much time flitting about the universe. An earthbound Lantern may have had more of a chance to connect on a gut level; as the character is something of a fluorescent Luke Skywalker rip-off (there's even talk of "dark forces").
Uh, the film spends most of its time on Earth. Also its a Star Wars ripoff, apparently.
That the super villain resembles nothing so much as a giant tentacled dust-bunny with teeth does nothing to make it strike fear in the hearts of the audience, even when said audience has been told that it is unconquerable. Then again all super villains are.
Dust bunny?
Even Mark Strong, in fetching red face-paint and Vulcan ears, cant make the hackneyed and overblown lines sound any better than they are, despite effortlessly wearing an imperious sense of authority as the lead Lantern who disapproves of Hals induction to the corps despite the rings putative inability to make a mistake.
So apparently Mark Strong WASN'T fantastic, nor was his dialogue.
Comparing the film to prior superhero efforts isnt flattering. Watching Hal and Carol flirt recalls the superior sparks thrown off by Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder in the first two Superman films. And where is the sense of joy found in being able to fly that the best superhero films deliver? Close your eyes and recall Reeve grinning as he took to the skies, or Robert Downey, Jr. feeling that adrenaline burst as his iron suit let him mock gravity.
So now it has to stand up against the best of the best of the superhero romances.
And apparently they missed the obvious joy from Hal when he learned he could fly.
Let us not mince words: a sci-fi epic about a magic imagination ring and an octopus-shaped cloud and the human being who can only learn to use his ring if he can get over the feelings of loss that have haunted him ever since his hotshot test pilot daddy died in an accident, that is not a film that can be understood quite as readily as "angry rich man turns into a vigilante", "boy gets radioactive spider bite, becomes spider", or "alien who is basically Jesus Christ saves everybody all the time", and it is thus not altogether surprising that the casual fan - or, indeed, the non-fan! - of comic books might find Green Lantern a bit harder to get into than Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman.
At least this critic admits this is something the critcs are doing.
So dumb. Theres just no inspiration to Green Lantern. The most special effect in the whole production is Ryan Reynolds backside in the hard, plasticky-looking Green Lantern outfit; one of the nicest bits of Hollywood padding since Michelle Pfeiffers hyper-fluffy derriere in 1992s Batman Returns. Theres an inordinate amount of scenes of Reynolds in only the smallest of skivvies throughout a goodly portion of the film, but even that estimable sight wasnt enough to save a film so lacking in imagination or wit. Perhaps part of the problem is that Green Lanterns power itself makes an odd translation to film. The Lanterns ring makes Hal Jordans thoughts a reality; he cant just ask it to blow up an alien ship or knock someone across a room. Jordan must actually think of a giant fist that then materialises out of green light from the ring and punches his opponent. The same silliness occurs with a crashing helicopter; Hals quick thinking conjures up a sort of transport train which carries the disabled aircraft along a race car ramp over the heads of potential victims on the ground. Sound convoluted? Boy is it; as are the Gatling guns, catapults and other weapons that Hal must manually operate against his foes instead of the ring simply being able to dispatch the bad guys. Its early days yet, but Im betting if theres any kind of award for worst visual effect of the year its going to Peter Sarsgaards bloated-headed alien mutation, which turns him into an unfortunate doppelganger for Rocky Dennis from the 1985 film Mask.
Apparently Hector Hammond's makeup is bad?
A pathetic superhero comic book film about the origins of the emerald-hued Green Hornet, filmed in 3-D and filmed without conviction for its cause. The plotline is convoluted, the dialogue is dreadful, the acting is stiff, the special effects are cheesy and the presentation is silly.
The Green Hornet?
Loud, incoherent and fuzzy-looking even with the 3D specs on, Green Lantern is the latest movie scraped from the barrel where studio execs store their childhood comic collections. I'm not even sure what Green Lantern's special skills are. He's a flying ace (Ryan Reynolds, doing a lot of eyebrow work) chosen when an alien crashes to earth. He has to defend a small patch of California from the dangerous over-acting of Peter Sarsgaard, while Geoffrey Rush looks on, dressed as a fish. As silly summer superhero movies go, this was thoroughly all right.
So this person didn't even get it, as simple as the concept and story was, and still gave it a positive review. Which was counted as a negative on RT.
Several critics have said the story was not coherent. Which is nonsense. Its incredibly easy to follow.
They've said that the movie suffers from superhero cliches, which literaly pretty much EVERY superhero movie has.
There have been complaints that the movie "doesn't know how to use Hector Hammond"...which obviously isn't true. He's a pawn of Parallax and a threat to Carol and Hal and his father.
And some of them just ramble about how they don't care for Hector Hammond or Parallax in general, BEYOND their design or story use. The basic concepts.
One of them even whines that GL chose to make a Hot Wheels racetrack to save the copter. One of the most creative things in the movie, and they whine about it.
Or they whine about how Hal Jordan as a character is irresponsible.
Do these really sound like fair, balanced reviews?
Green Lantern is a middle of the road film. It's not bad. It's not very good. The movie didn't have poor pacing, or bad dialogue, or even a bad story. It just didn't have the best of these. I think a lot of people just flat out expected the bar to be raised with this film, and I'm not sure why. I don't necessarily think the bar has to be raised every time. Maybe on something. With Green Lantern, it was clearly special effects.
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Bummer, eh?
