The Official Green Lantern Review Thread - Part 3

[DarkSuperman]

EXACTLY! How can I buy that they grew up together when Hal and Carrol look young and attractive, while Hector is balding and clearly in his 40s?

He was such a loser in this movie, in the comic book secret origin he was much more reminiscent of Doctor Doom blaming Reed Richards, in this case Green Lanterns for destroying his life. In this version of the script Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris are an after thought to him. Also, in the comic he was much more of a respectable scientist. He was an absolute *****e bag hated by all his peers and employees, but a respectable scientist nonetheless.

 

[Spider-Fan]

There are some movies that should never have sequels. Avatar is the perfect example. I'm sure the studio execs would love to have a sequel, but that's a perfectly self contained movie and there's no need for a second one.

However in the Superhero genre, I feel these are really nostalgic throwbacks to the old serial movies like Flash Gordon.

As much of a mess as this movie is, there's actually the threads of a great movie if they did it the right way and cleaned up the script. That's the frustrating part.

That's the thing that frustrates me most, too. With a few script tweaks, this could have been awesome.

Spoiler

Even Sinstro's turn at the end, setting up a potentially good sequel, was out of place. By the end of the film, Sinestro seems to understand that Hal was on to something, saw that fear can be conquered. He praises Hal for this. Then 5 minutes later...he decides to weild the power of fear? It makes no sense from a character arcing standpoint.

He was such a loser in this movie, in the comic book secret origin he was much more reminiscent of Doctor Doom blaming Reed Richards, in this case Green Lanterns for destroying his life. In this version of the script Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris are an after thought to him.

I can see the threads of a better character in the way Hammond is portrayed in the film, and that frustrates me about him. I can see a great story using him as a mirror Hal, but they just...did nothing with it and didn't resolve it. They decided to focus more on the cloud.

 

[GregComicFan]

I just saw Green Lantern...

The movie is NOT as bad as the critics made it out to be. I found it had striking similarities between itself and Thor, so how Thor was so well-reviewed and GL not well-reviewed is confusing to me...

My talking points:

1. The best thing about the movie was Ryan Reynolds
2. I concur - the villain was VERY weak. Peter Sarsgaard did fine in the role, but he was given absolutely nothing to work with. He's basically Harry Osbourne (which audiences already saw over the course of the entire Spiderman trilogy)... a loser who has daddy issues, gains some power, and goes nuts/evil with very little motivation or compelling drama to back it up. Paralax is just evil incarnate, so that's not interesting either. I even felt like Green Lantern held little fascination with Hector and what was going on with him; even though he conversed with him and tried to sway him from evil, he basically treated him like any common criminal on a power-trip. There was nothing compelling about the villain to the audience and even the hero seemed to be bored by him.
3. I was disappointed with James Newton Howard's score, since he's one of my favorite composers and the music was barely memorable.
4. Sinestro turning bad at the end made little sense. We need an entire movie to devote to his motivation for going rogue... tacking it on at the end made no sense, especially to the non-comic fan.

I'd say the biggest issue was the weak villain (on-par with the villain from Ghost Rider, I'd say) and the fact that Thor already bombarded audiences with an "other worldly hero joins forces with planet earth hero" sort of story-line. Carol Ferris was a generic love interest....doesn't she turn into a bad guy too? At least the sequel will be interesting since no other comic book franchise has the female-lead/love-interest turn into a villain.

 

[DCnightwing23]

I went to watch the midnight showing, all in all i was impressed. The cgi was pretty much amazing. The acting was just great, although i was put off my Hector Hammonds semi-perverted moves, Reynolds was good, Strong was amazing, and Lively wasnt as bad as i thought she was gonna be. I loved the voice-over work in the movie, and Abin Sur was just bad-ass. I was slightly disappointed that the universe wasnt expanded enough (i would've liked to see Sinestro or Tomar Re take Hal to a different planet on a case or something, that wouldve been neat) But im sure they'll do that in future installments since this is supposedly the Star Wars of comicbook films. I give the movie a 8/10, a very enjoyable film and i hope it continues to get even better!

 

[DCnightwing23]

Also i think for the sequel, especially with how the film ends with Sinestro, it would fit my idea of sequels to have Sinestro still wearing the Green Lantern ring (switching back to it to keep his evil plans a secret) and therefor the reason he takes Hal on missions to other planets to catch thugs is so Sinestro can secretly start recruiting for the Sinestro Corp.

 

[DarkSuperman]

Also hammond was sooooooooooo much more bad azz in the first draft! he used his Telepathy to rob banks, control GL and make him fire his ring at a bunch of people (which is the real reason Hal didnt want to face him. he was afraid he'd be used to hurt someone), and then he goes to Oa to get help they turn him down he fights parallax with sinestro and dive bombs into the central power battery making a huge explosion (where he seemingly dies and gets the GRAY TEMPLES) then having proven himself to the Corps Sinestro rallies the troops and the whole freaking corps goes to Earth to back up their boy Hal and take Hector down!

Unfortunately, we got none of that in this movie. the only reason i can come up with why they didnt film the above is monetary.

 

[Tony Stark]

That's the thing that frustrates me most, too. With a few script tweaks, this could have been awesome.

Spoiler

Even Sinstro's turn at the end, setting up a potentially good sequel, was out of place. By the end of the film, Sinestro seems to understand that Hal was on to something, saw that fear can be conquered. He praises Hal for this. Then 5 minutes later...he decides to weild the power of fear? It makes no sense from a character arcing standpoint.

Totally agree about the spoiler point. It was put there simply to setup a sequel and really had no connection of logic to the rest of the film.

 

[GregComicFan]

Totally agree about the spoiler point. It was put there simply to setup a sequel and really had no connection of logic to the rest of the film.

It was almost like the filmmakers just wanted to acknowledge to comic fans that they also know Sinestro goes bad... like they were saying "hey, we read the comics! We know what comes next!"...

 

[EML420]

Im really mixed about the movie because there are things I liked and things I didnt like. Like Ryan Reynolds I felt like he was just being himself thats really one of the big things that actually bothered me. Lively was good enough no real problem with her she looked super hot with brown hair. Mark Strong truly was Sinestro blew me away. Maybe worth a second viewing.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Totally agree about the spoiler point. It was put there simply to setup a sequel and really had no connection of logic to the rest of the film.

Exactly, and this is a major fault of the writing. If you're going to include a scene like that, then the character arc needs to LEAD the character there. In this case, it's a total character reversal from his arc. Bad writing. That should have been the payoff, not some random event.

It was almost like the filmmakers just wanted to acknowledge to comic fans that they also know Sinestro goes bad... like they were saying "hey, we read the comics! We know what comes next!"...

Exactly, and in this case, servicing the fans makes no sense. When Marvel have placed scenes after the credits, they have made sense as logical progressions. Here, while certainly it is what we all want to see, there was no real build up to it.

 

[GregComicFan]

The movie was basically one of those franchise-starter films that screams "The sequel will be 10x better, but for right now, since we have to show the origin and all the players, here's a ho-hum first entry in the series"

It feels like the preview for something better.

This is the same problem Daredevil, Ghost Rider, and other comic book movies had.

 

[Rowsdower!]

I just saw Green Lantern...

The movie is NOT as bad as the critics made it out to be. I found it had striking similarities between itself and Thor, so how Thor was so well-reviewed and GL not well-reviewed is confusing to me...

My talking points:

1. The best thing about the movie was Ryan Reynolds
2. I concur - the villain was VERY weak. Peter Sarsgaard did fine in the role, but he was given absolutely nothing to work with. He's basically Harry Osbourne (which audiences already saw over the course of the entire Spiderman trilogy)... a loser who has daddy issues, gains some power, and goes nuts/evil with very little motivation or compelling drama to back it up. Paralax is just evil incarnate, so that's not interesting either. I even felt like Green Lantern held little fascination with Hector and what was going on with him; even though he conversed with him and tried to sway him from evil, he basically treated him like any common criminal on a power-trip. There was nothing compelling about the villain to the audience and even the hero seemed to be bored by him.
3. I was disappointed with James Newton Howard's score, since he's one of my favorite composers and the music was barely memorable.
4. Sinestro turning bad at the end made little sense. We need an entire movie to devote to his motivation for going rogue... tacking it on at the end made no sense, especially to the non-comic fan.

I'd say the biggest issue was the weak villain (on-par with the villain from Ghost Rider, I'd say) and the fact that Thor already bombarded audiences with an "other worldly hero joins forces with planet earth hero" sort of story-line. Carol Ferris was a generic love interest....doesn't she turn into a bad guy too? At least the sequel will be interesting since no other comic book franchise has the female-lead/love-interest turn into a villain.

I agree with you about the Thor/GL thing critical response. I liked both films a lot, and I'm not sure why Thor was so well received and GL wasn't. Especially considering how I saw several critics complaining that GL relied too much on fanboy knowledge of the mythos. That might be true, but it was equally true with Thor. I still don't understand how the Bifrost really works or how

Spoiler

Loki could use it to destroy and entire planet.

I also found Heimdall's character confusing (though he was cool). I'm sure I would have understood all of that if I read Thor comics, but I never have. Also, those that complained about the CGI... Thor had some shoddy CGI here and there too. But it didn't ruin that movie either.

 

[KalMart]

There are some movies that should never have sequels. Avatar is the perfect example. I'm sure the studio execs would love to have a sequel, but that's a perfectly self contained movie and there's no need for a second one.

The incentive is pretty obvious, though. $$$

However in the Superhero genre, I feel these are really nostalgic throwbacks to the old serial movies like Flash Gordon.

As much of a mess as this movie is, there's actually the threads of a great movie if they did it the right way and cleaned up the script. That's the frustrating part.

See, the thing is,,,,feature films don't really lend themselves to ongoing installments past two or three...just by the nature of them. With how long they take to make, and how much you try to pack into each one...it's kind of like raising a child on each project...you just can't do that over and over through a lifetime. TV and shorter serials (like Flash Gordon, and the old saturday Western serials, etc.) are done in a quicker, more compact way to address that volume. But films...with up to 2-3 years of overall work for just one two-hour presentation.....even if you're doing something based on a serial, each film is like trying to wrap many of those worlds into one....and you just naturally exhaust the outlook/envelope of what you want to say on it...hence why very few series' hold up past two films.

So I still think the best way to kind of 'mirror' serials/periodicals is television....because television is produced that way...to have multiple running installments filmed and released over a season, and pace its workflow around that. Feature films, by design, are meant to shine bright rather briefly in comparison....more 'all eggs in one basket', if you will....even if you plan two or three of them. I know this intimately because it's what I do for a living. But besides that, I think it's important to respect movie versions as versions, and not necessarily a simulation of the comic experience. So if a comic-based movie doesn't work as a movie, then the movie format shouldn't have to give way to accommodate it more because it has to keep going like the comics, so to speak. It's okay if you only get one movie if it's really good, and it's definitely okay to drop it if the one doesn't turn out right. The comics will keep on going anyway...because that's what comics do.

 

[Quasimod0]

heimdall was the gatekeeper. defender of asgard. they explained it well

 

[GregComicFan]

I saw GL with two non-comicbook fan friends....

I walked out having to explain to them a lot about the mythos and basically how things get cooler from here...

that's never a good sign .... hahaha

I explained to my friends that Green Lantern is very much a space hero... and he's in space, on different planets, all the freaking time, hanging with other weird alien Green Lanterns, etc. Maybe the movie would have been better if it was just a "fish out of water" storyline and Hal was whisked away from his planet and the whole movie took place in space. Then, the movie could of had totally different themes, as Hal has to face the fact that he's a space cop/guardian of the universe now and has to leave earth behind. That's definitely a whole lot of responsibility when you know you have to give up the world you know for the betterment of everyone else.

 

[Man of Tomorrow]

The relationship between the three characters is frustratingly vaugue.

It was clear.


Three-way porn stache orgy.

 

[Matt]

Wow, this movie was bad. It was like every super hero movie cliche rolled into one.

So much wrong with it, I don't even know where to begin. Its like this movie didn't quite know what it was. Did it want to be a run of the mill superhero movie? Did it want to be a personal drama based around the relationship/parallel between Hal, Carol, and Hector? Did it want to be an epic space opera? It tried so hard to be so many things that it failed at all of them.

3/10

 

[RoughNTumble]

Wow, this movie was bad. It was like every super hero movie cliche rolled into one.

So much wrong with it, I don't even know where to begin. Its like this movie didn't quite know what it was. Did it want to be a run of the hill superhero movie? Did it want to be a personal drama based around the relationship/parallel between Hal, Carol, and Hector? Did it want to be an epic space opera? It tried so hard to be so many things that it failed at all of them.

3/10

yeah, it's a shame. I really thought WB had it figured out after the success of nolan's batman.

 

[chiefchirpa]

I just saw Green Lantern...

The movie is NOT as bad as the critics made it out to be. I found it had striking similarities between itself and Thor, so how Thor was so well-reviewed and GL not well-reviewed is confusing to me...

My talking points:

1. The best thing about the movie was Ryan Reynolds
2. I concur - the villain was VERY weak. Peter Sarsgaard did fine in the role, but he was given absolutely nothing to work with. He's basically Harry Osbourne (which audiences already saw over the course of the entire Spiderman trilogy)... a loser who has daddy issues, gains some power, and goes nuts/evil with very little motivation or compelling drama to back it up. Paralax is just evil incarnate, so that's not interesting either. I even felt like Green Lantern held little fascination with Hector and what was going on with him; even though he conversed with him and tried to sway him from evil, he basically treated him like any common criminal on a power-trip. There was nothing compelling about the villain to the audience and even the hero seemed to be bored by him.
3. I was disappointed with James Newton Howard's score, since he's one of my favorite composers and the music was barely memorable.
4. Sinestro turning bad at the end made little sense. We need an entire movie to devote to his motivation for going rogue... tacking it on at the end made no sense, especially to the non-comic fan.

I'd say the biggest issue was the weak villain (on-par with the villain from Ghost Rider, I'd say) and the fact that Thor already bombarded audiences with an "other worldly hero joins forces with planet earth hero" sort of story-line. Carol Ferris was a generic love interest....doesn't she turn into a bad guy too? At least the sequel will be interesting since no other comic book franchise has the female-lead/love-interest turn into a villain.

Thor is very much a characters relationship driven film. Those are its saving points amid the hasty story and cheaper look (which certainly is a good approach when the middling box office sales goes above the budget).

Now I haven't seen GL yet, but most reviews have said there's no relationship drama to look for in GL.

 

[Nokio]

Also hammond was sooooooooooo much more bad azz in the first draft! he used his Telepathy to rob banks, control GL

Well that would certainly be an issue for me since the rings are supposed to have mental shielding to prevent telepaths from
manipulating a GL. It's been that way as long as I can remember and would make perfect sense for an intergalactic police force that wields one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. Spoiler......... It bothered me when Hammond was able to see Hal's thoughts, so it would've certainly pissed me off if Hal was being controlled by Hammond.

 

[Tony Stark]

I agree with you about the Thor/GL thing critical response. I liked both films a lot, and I'm not sure why Thor was so well received and GL wasn't. Especially considering how I saw several critics complaining that GL relied too much on fanboy knowledge of the mythos. That might be true, but it was equally true with Thor. I still don't understand how the Bifrost really works or how

Spoiler

Loki could use it to destroy and entire planet.

I also found Heimdall's character confusing (though he was cool). I'm sure I would have understood all of that if I read Thor comics, but I never have. Also, those that complained about the CGI... Thor had some shoddy CGI here and there too. But it didn't ruin that movie either.

The Bifrost thing was explained in the movie, no fanboy knowledge needed. It works because it's an Einstein Rosen bridge or a wormhole. When they first go to Jotenheim, Volstagg asks Heimdal why he doesn't leave the Bifrost open for them for their return. He replies he could do that if he wanted to tear Jotenheim apart with them on it. Loki is able to use it to destroy Jotenheim by opening the portal and using the casket he took to freeze it shut.

As far as why it got better reviews, because it's a better movie. The script was better the acting was better, the story was more coherant and it was much more epic in scope.

 

[Tony Stark]

Wow, this movie was bad. It was like every super hero movie cliche rolled into one.

So much wrong with it, I don't even know where to begin. Its like this movie didn't quite know what it was. Did it want to be a run of the mill superhero movie? Did it want to be a personal drama based around the relationship/parallel between Hal, Carol, and Hector? Did it want to be an epic space opera? It tried so hard to be so many things that it failed at all of them.

3/10

You hit the nail on the head. Too many things to too many people. Again I challenge anyone who hasn't watched it before to go take a look at Green Lantern First Flight, even if you don't normally watch animated movies.

Watch that and tell me that the script writing in that wasn't 1000 times better than this movie.

 

[KalMart]

yeah, it's a shame. I really thought WB had it figured out after the success of nolan's batman.

If they had they would have had Nolan do GL...because that's they key to that success.

 

[EML420]

You hit the nail on the head. Too many things to too many people. Again I challenge anyone who hasn't watched it before to go take a look at Green Lantern First Flight, even if you don't normally watch animated movies.

Watch that and tell me that the script writing in that wasn't 1000 times better than this movie.

To be honest I was thinking that the film was going to based off First flight lol. Has far has animated movies go First flight was good.

 

[Man of Tomorrow]

What....

I don't understand this review, I mean.. how is this even possible?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cStx0_dWExk