The Official Green Lantern Review Thread - Part 4

[Episode29]

The great and hilarious Topless Robot recounts the best scenes from Green Lantern.

 

[MadVillainy]

Question: I hear alot of people saying GL should be a "space opera" I know that Star Wars is considered a space opera, but what do people mean when they say space opera and how could GL have changed to be one

 

[Micromind]

GL story could have included with hal and Corps visiting more Alien planets, Hal interacting with more alien GL Corp members, more Sci Fi, the movie could have spent more than 80 % of its run time in space etc.

 

[Crimson King]

GL was treated like a Marvel movie instead of a DC one.

That's not a pot shot at Marvel fans at all, moreso the people who make Marvel films. It seems with so many of them, there's nothing at stake. If they don't make $, there will just be another reboot in 5 or so years.

Marvel makes films that are just as good as DC. So GL is a stinker. So what? Marvel has nothing to do with it.

 

[The Lizard]

Eh -- you know what? It wasn't as horrible as I was expecting after all the bad reviews.
It did a lot of things wrong, there were gigantic plot holes of course, and the second act sort of plodded along, and the tepid Hal/Carol romance was kind of blah.
But if GL had been released, say, six or seven years ago, I think it would have been a lot better received simply because it's following the formula of successful comic movies of that period. An unoriginal idea, but not a horrible, blasphemous one.
I actually found myself hoping that GL makes enough money to justify a sequel, so we can see some REAL crazy construct vs construct battles in the form of Hal vs Sinestro.

I give GL 6/10

 

[EliteF50]

The great and hilarious Topless Robot recounts the best scenes from Green Lantern.

Lmao!

Parallax: HEY, HECTOR.
Hector Hammond: Hey, Parallax.
Parallax: I AM GOING TO OA TO EAT EVERYBODY. WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?
Hector Hammond: Well, you made me evil, so I'm going to **** around with Hal Jordan and Blake Lively because of some tenuous connection in our past that the movie only alluded to like five minutes ago,
Parallax: OKAY, COOL. HEY, HAL JORDAN WEARS THE RING OF THE DUDE WHO IMPRISONED ME, RIGHT? I THINK I'LL COME TO EARTH, EAT HIM AND ALL OF HUMANITY, AND THEN I'LL BE POWERFUL ENOUGH TO GO TO OA AND DEFEAT THE GUARDIANS AND ALL THE GREEN LANTERNS!
Hector Hammond: ...
Parallax: WHAT.
Hector Hammond: ...doesn't that mean you aren't powerful enough to defeat the Guardians and Green Lanterns right now?
Parallax: WELL, YES.
Hector Hammond: So... why were you going to Oa?
(pause)
Parallax: OH ****! I SEE WHAT YOU MEAN! I WAS ABOUT TO GET MY ASS KICKED!
Hector Hammond: Yeah, you were!
Parallax: I'M SO GLAD I CALLED!

***********************************

Hal Jordan: Guardians! I'm ready to be a hero now! Parallax is heading to Earth! And we don't have much time, because the movie is like 6/7ths over!
Guardians: Okay... what do you want?
Hal Jordan: I want you to send all the Green Lanterns to Earth to fight Parallax!
Guardians: (pretending to think) ...nah.
Hal Jordan: Really?
Guardians: Really.
Hal Jordan: Well, let me fight on Earth's behalf!
Guardians: Huh?
Hal Jordan: I said, let me fight on Earth's beh--
Guardians: We know what you said. But did we ever tell you you couldn't fight for Earth?
Hal Jordan: No.
Guardians: Actually, have we told you anything, ever?
Hal Jordan: No.
Guardians: Have we ever appeared to have given the tiniest **** about you, even when you quit the Green Lantern Corps but still took your Power Ring with you?
Hal Jordan: Not really.
Guardians: So why would you ask us permission to fight for your own planet? Go ahead. Knock yourself out.
Hal Jordan: Oh. I guess... I guess I'll be going then. (flies back to Earth)
Guardians: Christ, what an *******.

 

[KalMart]

GL story could have included with hal and Corps visiting more Alien planets, Hal interacting with more alien GL Corp members, more Sci Fi, the movie could have spent more than 80 % of its run time in space etc.

SSShhhhh!!!!!!


C'mon man, save it for the sequel...!

 

[Tony Stark]

ssshhhhh!!!!!!


C'mon man, save it for the sequel...!

roflol x 1,000,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Rock Sexton]

roflol x 1,000,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hahah best new meme I've seen in a long time.

 

[Mace Dolex]

So looks like the box office take isn't what the studio expected, too bad but I do wish for a better sequel, I'm not even a GL fan but I know it has more potential Thor or Captain America.

If I could compare the tone of the movie it would be comparable to the Fantastic Four films which had that kid friendly vibe and played it safe but the FF suck anyway so there wasn't much to expect from.

 

[KalMart]

Glad to see there are some ardent sports fans out there.

 

[NewYorkSpider]

I'm gonna be REAL nice and give this a 6/10.

 

[hame4479]

Question: I hear alot of people saying GL should be a "space opera" I know that Star Wars is considered a space opera, but what do people mean when they say space opera and how could GL have changed to be one

Bingo, this is y this film failed. It promised me something that it never delivered. And that is hardly up for debate. All of the marketing revolved around and Oa and the corp., but in the film these elements were hardly existent.

 

[Jack Napier]

Marvel makes films that are just as good as DC. So GL is a stinker. So what? Marvel has nothing to do with it.

I'm not saying Marvel makes bad films. I like them just the same! But it's about the mindset and philosophy behind making those films.

Marvel throws everything at the wall to see what sticks. Some turn out well ("Iron Man", "Spider-Man", "X-Men:First Class"), others not so much...("Elektra", "Daredevil", "Ghost Rider").

DC deliberates on how to bring a film to the screen. Batman '89 was in development since after "Superman" with Chris Reeve. "Superman Returns" went through 19 years of Kevin Smith, Tim Burton, McG, and Brett Ratner before being made. "Green Lantern" was almost made with Jack Black and Robert Smigel. "Watchmen".

Granted, "Spider-Man" was in development with James Cameron, but it's like DC tries to make the circumstances perfect, whereas Marvel will make "Hulk" and takes the chance, and if it's not the success they hoped for, hey, there's always the reboot option, like what they're doing now with "Fantastic Four" and "Daredevil".

 

[Ipodman]

The great and hilarious Topless Robot recounts the best scenes from Green Lantern.

Lol!

Sinestro does look like a pedo...

 

[Darthkush]

my review...


I have to admit. I was really hyped about Green Lantern. This movie is significant for me for several reasons. The first being that, like many of these films, the movie is based on an superhero comic that i'm a fan of and I've been reading Green Lantern fairly regularly from about 2002 or 03 until i kinda gave up on most comics a year or two ago and I've been a fan of the character since the mid 90's as well. The second and bigger reason I was hyped was that Green Lantern is the first of DC's big comic characters who's NOT Superman or Batman to get their own big budget movie. If this movie works and it makes money, a whole cincematic universe could open up much the same way that Marvel has gotten most of it's characters on the big screen over the past decade. Sadly, this is probably just a dream again as Green Lantern isn't very good.

Green Lantern follows test pilot, Hal Jordan(Ryan Reynolds) as he receives an glowing ring from an dying purple alien that turns him into one of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic space police force that patrols the galaxy for cosmic threats and neutralizes them. While Hal is dealing with becoming a superhero and trying to fix his relationship with his boss and ex girlfriend, Carol(Blake Lively), scientist Hector Hammond(Peter Saarsgaard) has become possessed by the evil being Parallax and he's bent on destroying earth and stealing Carol away from Hal. Hal has to learn to be a hero, woo his girl back, understand the other Green Lanterns and defeat the bad guys before the movie can end.

Green Lantern is a pretty short flick but it doesn't end soon enough. Let's try to get some of the positives out of the way before I get into all it's problems(and they're pretty big). I enjoyed the viewing experience. My wife Jane seemed to dig it more than I did and I loved how she would hold my hand tighter when Hal and Carol kissed or he rescued her or whatever so that was cool. The film is faithful to the comics in Hal's story, the looks of the characters, the general storyline. Everything is the way it's "supposed to be". Also, the special fx(which looked really hokey during the trailers/tv spots) looks better onscrean. It's not great but it's not as spotty as many initially thought. Also Mark Strong is fantastic as Sinestro. He's got a great makeup job and Strong makes the character exactly as his comic counterpoint while also making him feel more real in some ways. Green Latern's use of his powers is entertaining and we get to see all sorts of neat constructs that the ring can make to really cool effect. The training scenes with Killowog(voice of Michael Clarke Duncan), Tomar Re(voice of Geoffrey Rush) and Sinestro all kick ass. In fact, they're by far, the best parts in the whole movie. Finally, Temuera Morrison is very good as Abin Sur in his brief screentime and the first 10 minutes of the film are a lot of fun, mostly due to his efforts.

Everything else? Bad. Nothing else about the movie works completely. Ryan Reynolds isn't a terrible actor but damnit if he isn't lost in this movie. At times, Reynolds plays the character with the cocky sarcasm that has become his signature on flilm, sometimes he plays it straight and serious, and other times he plays it with absolutely 0 emotion of any kind. It's like he's trying to figure out how to play the character and at times, he works, but it's never consistant. I don't blame him though, i blame the film's biggest problem, it's script. It's a problematic draft that's full of exposition speeches and perfunctory scenes that either don't work at all or are halfassed. Ryan Reynolds isn't the only actor the script fails. No one has a worse job here than Saarsgaard as Hammond. Unlike Reynolds, Saarsgaard pulls every trick out of his actor book to try to make it work but it just doesn't. Hector Hammond's motivations never feel too concrete. We know his father(played here by Tim Robbins in a thankless and generic role) thinks he's a screwup and Hector hates him because of it and we know that Hector is in love with Carol Ferris and is jealous of Hal Jordan. At least, I think he is. The film NEVER spends anytime fleshing out what the relationship between Hal/Carol/Hector is supposed to be. We have a few throw away lines from all 3 indication they know each other somehow but we don't know the depth to which they know each other. Is is from childhood? highschool? College? What? The filmakers don't care and neither will you. At one in the film(Minor spoiler), Hal decides to quit being Green Lantern.....after a 10 minute training sequence because Sinestro says he's a wimp(more or less). It doesn't feel natural. It's extremely forced and comes off like the producters just wanted Hal back on earth to save money on fx shots. Nothing and Nobody is fleshed out the way they should be. Hal's brothers and nephew are in one scene and are never seen again. The Guardians(little blue aliens who run the GL Corps) are seen a handful of times and always come off like they don't care about anything that's happening in the film. The Romance between Hal and Carol? Complete junk. I'm a softie on superhero romance but this is, by far, the most poorly constructed and worse one I've ever seen on film and this is coming from someone who likes their coupling in every other form of media but in this film, I couldn't care less. It doesn't help that Blake Lively's performance is not unlike a mannequin that's magically come to life. Clancy Brown does a good job voicing Parallax but the villain himself isn't much to get excited about. He's just a big cgi head and some glowing yellow fx. I won't get into his fight with Hal at the end(due to being too spoilery) but I'll say it's not believable considering earlier in the film, Parallax kills like 8 other lanterns with 10x Hal's experience. Speaking of the other Lanterns, none of them other than Sinestro has any real role with Killowog and Tomar Re appearing only maybe 10-15 minutes and and the others being no more than cameo background characters. Finally, without spoiing the end credits ending, I will say although that character is supposed to take a turn to the dark side, it's never earned in the film. Oh, there's a little spoilery explanation that can be made for it BUT it's too artificial and frankly not enough. X-men first Class did that kind of thing WAY better.

Martin Campbell's direction leaves much to be desired here. I was confident when I heard him announced having liked his Banderas Zorro movies and the couple of James Bond movies he's done but he definitely didn't know what he was doing here. It's not incompetence but it definitely reeks of inexperience with this kind of fx heavy movie. The movie score by James Newton Howard isn't just bland but it's actually terrible and irritates me to hear it. If we can't have iconic and awesome, I'd rather just have bland background but this is worse than that. Just a terrible score.

For all it's bad qualities, Green Lantern isn't horrible, it's just amazingly mediocre. I had a few moments where I really liked it and there's potential for a sequel to be a lot better with a better script, better score, and better director. But really, there's no excuse for the film to be as bad as it is. Green Lantern isn't terrible but it's a big dissapointment. If you're a nerd, you have to watch it as this is a film/comic geek conversation piece you dont' want to be left out of it. Everybody else, I'd steer clear until you can rent it. I guess the law of averages hath spoken. In a summer with 4 supehero movies, at least one of them had to suck. Thor was very good and X-men: first Class was brilliant so I guess GL had to be the sucky one. Here's hoping Captain America can be something worth loving.

 

[K'Prime]

the great and hilarious topless robot recounts the best scenes from green lantern.

hal jordan: you know what the best part is? Even though you were defeated by your own stupidity, we're all going to pretend that this fulfills my heroic journey and all the green lanterns will like me now! Even sinestro!
parallax: ****. Really?
hal jordan: Yep!
parallax: christ, whaat an aaaaaasssshhhhooooolllll-- (gets sucked into the sun and burns up)

roflmao!

 

[Mace Dolex]

Marvel throws everything at the wall to see what sticks. Some turn out well ("Iron Man", "Spider-Man", "X-Men:First Class"), others not so much...("Elektra", "Daredevil", "Ghost Rider").

Going a little off subject I think Daredevil is right up there with Spider-Man, Iron Man, X-Men is coolness.

I think the hate stems in that nobody like Ben Affleck in the role but the movie itself takes the comic seriously, hell because it I got into the Frank Miller stories.

 

[Saitou Hajime]

Marvel throws everything at the wall to see what sticks. Some turn out well ("Iron Man", "Spider-Man", "X-Men:First Class"), others not so much...("Elektra", "Daredevil", "Ghost Rider").

Except "Iron Man" is the only movie on that list that can be truly credited to Marvel. Everything else is by other studios that just have the rights to their properties, all of whom have differing mindsets and philosophies with just each other, much less when compared to Marvel.

 

[Vartha]

Silly but serious question. Since our sun is YELLOW wouldn't our GL be more powerful AWAY from our sun? Often wondered that really.

 

[moviedoors]

Silly but serious question. Since our sun is YELLOW wouldn't our GL be more powerful AWAY from our sun? Often wondered that really.

To be fair, they did get away from the literal weakness to the color yellow, and I'm glad they did. It's such an inherently silly idea. I thought it was goofy when I was 8.

 

[KalMart]

Silly but serious question. Since our sun is YELLOW wouldn't our GL be more powerful AWAY from our sun? Often wondered that really.

Holy cow...you're right.....





.....that IS silly.

 

[Vartha]

To be fair, they did get away from the literal weakness to the color yellow, and I'm glad they did. It's such an inherently silly idea. I thought it was goofy when I was 8.

lol Yeah that's one thing I recall was that weakness to Yellow.

 

[Vartha]

Holy cow...you're right.....





.....that IS silly.

heh well he wouldn't be able to eat lemons, bannas corn or butter if he still did. lol

 

[bullets]

The great and hilarious Topless Robot recounts the best scenes from Green Lantern.

I liked Green Lantern but I do find this really funny.