Green Lantern (2011)

Continuing with the hero theme for this month, we come across the Green Lantern, a human who, originally, was a railroad engineer who came across a green lantern, which had been crafted by a patient at a mental institution which was derived from someone who originally made a magical green flame into a lamp.


Yeah I didn't really follow the Green Lantern. In all honesty I didn't really follow any comics until recent years, and any comic characters I did follow was mainly Batman from the animated series, and whoever was in the animated Justice League television series.


And in this film, we follow neither of those characters, as we look at Hal Jordan, the character DC used for the Silver Age of comics. Here Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is chosen by Abin Sur's (Temuera Morrison) ring to become a new Green Lantern, a form of space police, you know, like the Judoon. The reason why Abin Sur's Ring (of Willpower) needed to chose a new bearer, was because a creature called Parallax (Voiced by the Highlander Clancy Brown) has broken free from a prison-like place, and is seeking revenge against the Green Lanterns and the Guardians of the Universe (The leaders of the Lanterns).


Okay, I'll start with the main problem I had with this film; the effects. Okay, some effects looked great, Parallax actually looked scary and threatening, while the Green Lantern's ring powers actually did look the way I expected them to be. Well, most of the time anyway. However, the rest of the effects, are bad. Seriously bad. The lanterns suit looks fake, the other Lanterns looked fake, the Guardians of the Universe looked fake, Oa looked fake! I just can't take the other characters or Oa seriously. Except for Tomar-Re (Geoffrey Rush). He was awesome.


Then there's the story. It just felt rushed and yet slow and disjointed at the same time. Jordan travels to Oa numerous times whilst Parallax seems lost, especially since he seems to go out of his way to Earth rather than destroy the greater threat, Jordan quits only to enlist then quit again before rejoining the Corps, Sinestro (Mark Strong) constantly whines that something needs to be done with Parallax, and then when he finally leads a group of Green Lanterns at Parallax, he effectively does nothing while they die. Then Sinestro convinces the Guardians that they need to create a Ring of Fear to combat Parrallax, despite the fact that using the power of Fear was what created this problem in the first place. And while I didn't follow the Green Lantern, I did for some reason recall a giant forehead villain, which turned out to be Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard). Introducing him as a major villain in this film felt out of place.

But in all honesty, this isn't really a bad film. I mean, I know from my extensive research (Five seconds on Wikipedia), Parallax wasn't a former Guardian of the Universe, he was in fact a parasite who had reality warping powers and originally used Hal Jordan as a host. Hammond meanwhile became a supervillain by exposing himself to a meteorite from outer space, instead of gaining his powers from Parallax. But hey, at least Hammond and Parallax in this film proved to be actual threats, Hammond himself killed quite a few people while being sympathetic at times, whereas Parallax consumed planets and pretty much killed everything in his path up until Jordan on Earth. People did complain about the design of Parallax being a cloud, but hey, at least this cloud actually did something

unlike this Goddamn cloud!

The acting meanwhile, is pretty much the fault of the script. No-one was bad per se, but it wasn't the best in the world. Again, I believe this was the fault of the script. People complain about Reynolds acting in this, and yet as we've seen in other films like 'Buried' or 'Smokin' Aces', he can pull off a great performance. Sarsgaard meanwhile does portray a great character, making us feel sorry for him as well as see his emotions as the power of fear slowly corrupts him. Everyone else...was okay, again.

Is this film the best? Oh no, far from it, but is it as bad as they all say? Well, no, not really, I don't see why people get so worked up over this. Maybe it's because I'm not that big a Lantern fan, so I wouldn't get that frustrated at certain changes. Like I said, it's not the best film, but it's certainly not the worst.