The Official Green Lantern Review Thread - Part 5

[Rock Sexton]

That's hardly a measure of anything. Plenty of great movies tank at the box office while plenty of terrible movies rake in massive amount of change. That's the reality. The amount of money a film makes is hardly an indicator of quality.

It's both a financial and critical failure. That's the reality. If word of mouth was great from the average movie goer, you wouldn't be seeing what you're seeing now.

 

[MadVillainy]

Still havent seen it yet, but I hear alot of people saying they shouldve set the whole movie in space.
But Im wondering how would they have dealt with Carol Ferris? I mean it's a superhero movie so obviously there wouldve been a love interest. Carol is Hal's biggest love interest. WHat couldve been done

 

[Liam_H]

Still havent seen it yet, but I hear alot of people saying they shouldve set the whole movie in space.
But Im wondering how would they have dealt with Carol Ferris? I mean it's a superhero movie so obviously there wouldve been a love interest. Carol is Hal's biggest love interest. WHat couldve been done

I personally don't mind if they want to give more emphasis on earth than space in the first movie. It makes sense that Hal would take on the responsibility of the ring because there is a threat on Earth but have the threat connect back to the GLC/Oa. Once Hal accepts the duty of the ring and goes off to train with Sinestro at the end then we could have our epic space movie in a sequel.

It's just that most of the Earth scenes...especially in the 2nd half of the movie...are so badly done that we just wished it would've been mostly space if that's what being on Earth is going to give us.

 

[Poni_Boy]

I personally don't mind if they want to give more emphasis on earth than space in the first movie. It makes sense that Hal would take on the responsibility of the ring because there is a threat on Earth but have the threat connect back to the GLC/Oa. Once Hal accepts the duty of the ring and goes off to train with Sinestro at the end then we could have our epic space movie in a sequel.

It's just that most of the Earth scenes...especially in the 2nd half of the movie...are so badly done that we just wished it would've been mostly space if that's what being on Earth is going to give us.

That's exactly how I feel. Setting the majority of the film in space really wouldn't have done much more to help the film since the writing was bad all around.

 

[Liam_H]

That's exactly how I feel. Setting the majority of the film in space really wouldn't have done much more to help the film since the writing was bad all around.

For the first half of the movie I was like there are some small problems but this is still pretty decent...but then he came back from Oa and the movie just wouldn't stop sucking until the credits started to roll...then the mid-credits...

 

[Mysteryman]

I think that once Hal had the ring , they should have made a choice.
Either set the majority of the rest of the film on Earth or Oa .
Instead they went back and forth and muted the movie.
It was if they couldnt decide what kind of film they wanted to make.

 

[Liam_H]

I think that once Hal had the ring , they should have made a choice.
Either set the majority of the rest of the film on Earth or Oa .
Instead they went back and forth and muted the movie.
It was if they couldnt decide what kind of film they wanted to make.

Well I would've liked it if Hal didn't want to take the ring because he didn't think fighting a giant creature of fear is his problem. But if something threatens Earth he realizes he can stop and finally accepts the responsibility. The movie did this sort of but it was done very poorly.

 

[Poni_Boy]

I think that once Hal had the ring , they should have made a choice.
Either set the majority of the rest of the film on Earth or Oa .
Instead they went back and forth and muted the movie.
It was if they couldnt decide what kind of film they wanted to make.

Yep, i said the same thing the other day. Commit to one or you forgo both. Indecision played out before our eyes

 

[misjuevos]

just saw it again, gotta say i like it more than the first time i saw it. it is a good superhero movie. all i ever wanted was oa, aliens, constructs and space flying. i got it all. so for me i enjoyed it. i still would have like the end battle to have been hal with the glc.

 

[Ipodman]

I wouldn't mind the amount of earth scenes we got, but I wished they had cut down on the Hammond character and his screaming...

 

[sidkumar]

WARNING! SPOILERS:


I really wanted to like this movie and in the first 20 mins I thought for certain that critics were bashing the film for no reason, but man does it get really ******. On a script level it is so sloppy it's embarrassing.

The way they try to force feed the fear vs. will theme. I'm a big fan of the Green Lantern comics series and I found myself thinking, "What the F*** are they talking about?". The choice to base it on Secret origins but make it more about the Hal- Carol relationship and not the Hal-Sinestro relationship was such a stupid move. Carol feels like she's saying the same thing to Hal everytime she meets him and that takes away from when it actually matters. (I thought the scene where she asks him how many times he's going to run away from things that are important to him was pretty strong.). Instead, Sinestro who is played perfectly by Mark Strong is reduced to a couple of chats for the most and as a result we view the Green Lantern Corps from the perspective of Hal and his friends that are constantly making lame jokes on super hero cliches when we should be seeing Hal butting heads with Sinestro and seeing things from the perspecitve of corps members and therefore be more invested into what that means.

And that's the big problem with the film. It feels like the subtext of every scene is "Look... WE know this stuff is stupid but we're making jokes about it so we're above it. No one but nerds would take this seriously." Maybe it is stupid. But then again, so is a billionaire wearing a costume with pointy ears and a cape and beating up bad guys and throwing bat shaped ninja stars. If you don't take it seriously, neither will the audience.

And damsel in distress stuff? Really? It's 2011 for christ's sake!

What's really sad is, the actors came to give it their all. Ryan was great as Hal. Maybe a tad much with the jokes but otherwise he commits to what he's doing completely. Peter Saargard starts out terrific but when the script tries to parallel Hal's daddy issues with his own, it all goes down the crapper. Couldn't Hector just have been a guys hired to check out the body and left it at that? He had to be in love with Carol and jealous of Hal too? Mark Strong, as i said before, really should have been the one to drive the film with Ryan but wasn't given the chance.

Oh and the suit! I thought the move to make it and energy suit was a great move but why does every one elses suit look better than Hal's? Sinestro's was PERFECT. They should have just slapped that one on Ryan. Sigh...

And Parralax... Not only was it portrayed really badly but the scenes when crowds are running away from it looked really fake. And trick it into a star? That was the final move? No corps member could have thought of that? And were Sinestro, Toma re and Kilowog just watching him in the end??!?

Couple of fan service moments that almost made it worth the price of the ticket but I was a fan. Anyone who hasn't heard of the green lantern mythology and wanted to get into this movie, I can't imagine how you suffered through it.

 

[DeGenerate10]

I felt the acting wasn't very good with the exception of Ryan Reynolds even though I wasn't a fan of him. The story felt so rushed. I couldn't stand the villain neither the human guy with the big head or the cloud. I hated how Hal beat Parralax and I hated no other Green Lantern would help him.

I give it a 3/10

 

[rogue trooper]

I'd say it's much more baffling watching you guys be baffled.

 

[S.A.A.D.]

But would anyone even watch it?

What do you think? So let me get this straight, a sequel to a bad movie=zero butts in the seats.

 

[DACrowe]

So I finally saw this little movie.


It honestly wasn't the trainwreck that the reviews were suggesting. No, it was not a Batman and Robin styled catastrophe. It was just merely and squarely mediocre. In the same level of average badness as the Fantastic Four films or X3/XOW.

It's main problem is that it just had no life to it. There were some nice elements--Ryan Reynolds's snappy performance, Mark Strong adding gravitas to some of the Corps proceedings, Hector Hammond pre-kill dad silliness--they were just overshadowed by a pedestrian and formulaic narrative. The storytelling was so manufactured with lame things that did not go anywhere. It had an uneven pace where scenes just abruptly ended and side characters, like Hal's geeky best friend or Amanda Walker, who are set up to play crucial roles and then just disappear. I'll credit the romance with having a believable set up of old flames, but then it is just by-the-numbers from there and taken for granted by the director. Granted, Blake Lively as a fighter pilot was ridiculous. But her as an old lover to Hal could have been explored more than the lip service it got.

Ultimately, the movie just felt lifeless and unintentionally cheesy. Oa felt lifeless. Most of the relationships felt lifeless. I know nothing about GL mythology, so I found the "Will vs. Fear" stuff to be cheesy and laughable. And honestly, with the magic ring, all the green and the fights between GL and HH in the middle, it really did feel like a Saturday morning serial from the 1940s. I guess that's where GL's roots came from, but for a big budget Hollywood summer movie it just felt very dated and lame in concept. I never knew much about GL, but I didn't get that feeling from him in that JL cartoon (where he was strangely black?).

I'll put it this way, I know even less about Thor's comic mythology. However, that Thor film after its shaky prologue was charming and deft enough in direction and style to allow me to buy this multi-demensional semi-god type story between Asgard and Earth. It was so charming when some elements didn't work (like the writing between Thor and Jane) that the direction and acting made that irrelevant. The film was enjoyable and I accepted its potential absurdity. GL didn't feel like Star Wars as its fans said it does. It felt like Buck Rogers.

5/10

Not one of the worst films ever, but by no means is this a good movie.

 

[S.A.A.D.]

Can someone tell me why it was wrong for Green Lantern to be a mix of things? If a comic book movie shouldn't be a mix of things in the minds of people then they might as well stop watching comic book movies altogether. I guess that some comic book fans secretly don't like their comic book movies to be 'colorful'. Oh well.

Secondly, how was Hector wasted? He challenged Hal, killed his dad, harmed people. And he kidnapped Carol and threatened to inject her with a part of Parallax. Again, someone is reaching to criticize the movie.

 

[DaveMoral]

^GL in the Justice League cartoon was the third of the human Green Lanterns, John Stewart. He's a later successor to Hal.

 

[The Sage]

Can someone tell me why it was wrong for Green Lantern to be a mix of things? If a comic book movie shouldn't be a mix of things in the minds of
people then they might as well stop watching comic book movies altogether.
I guess that some comic book fans secretly don't like their comic book movies
to be 'colorful'. Oh well.

What are you referring to? What mix are you talking about?

 

[KalMart]

Can someone tell me why it was wrong for Green Lantern to be a mix of things? If a comic book movie shouldn't be a mix of things in the minds of
people then they might as well stop watching comic book movies altogether.
I guess that some comic book fans secretly don't like their comic book movies
to be 'colorful'. Oh well.

It's not what you mix but how you mix it, and present it...the latter of which seems to be the big problem with GL.

 

[moviedoors]

Can someone tell me why it was wrong for Green Lantern to be a mix of things? If a comic book movie shouldn't be a mix of things in the minds of
people then they might as well stop watching comic book movies altogether.
I guess that some comic book fans secretly don't like their comic book movies
to be 'colorful'. Oh well.

Nothing wrong with there being a mix in and of itself, but you have to pull it off. You don't, and the seams show and gig is up.

 

[Rock Sexton]

 

[Rock Sexton]

EDIT: Sage, why do you keep deleting comments you make to me?

 

[The Sage]

EDIT: Sage, why do you keep deleting comments you make to me?

I thought about this one. I was gonna comment on the gifs being exchanged, but I decided not to.

 

[Crimson King]

If you take away the eye rolls, what will S.A.A.D. ever do?

 

[The Sage]

Nothing wrong with there being a mix in and of itself, but you have to pull it off. You don't, and the seams show and gig is up.

Short, concise, and correct.