"green lantern"

my first introduction to green lantern was in my childhood.  there was a little show called "super friends".  i already knew superman, batman, wonder woman and i even knew who aquaman was.  but, i had no idea who this green guy was.  he had a ring that could do stuff...that's kinda cool!

 over the years i heard things about green lantern, i even had a comic book of the green lantern corps at one time but i just couldn't get into him.  he was kinda neat, but he just wasn't the flash, ya know?  then, i heard that he turned evil and then died.  that was crazy!  really?  ok.  

i didn't really appreciate green lantern (or especially hal jordan because there have been many green lanterns: john stewart, kyle raynor, guy gardner and the original alan scott) until i began playing heroclix.  i got my hands on hal jordan and fell in love with the green basterd.  after that i started reading up on him and then DC decided to bring him back from the dead.  i bought the comics and read them up!!

now, that brings us to the movie.  the comic book movie boom was taking off, especially for DC after "batman begins".  DC and warner bros. announced they were gonna make a GL flick and i got a little excited.  but not too excited 'cos they hadn't even cast it yet.

i have to say i had mixed feelings about ryan reynolds being cast.  i personally really wanted the part to go to nathan fillion.  but i understand that he was busy with his hit TV show "castle"!!

nathan fillion as capt malcolm reynolds in "firefly"

fillion and stana katic on ABC's "castle"

the redeeming factor for DC/WB is that they cast nathan as GL in the animated flicks!!  way to go!!

ok...moving on...  

so, ryan reynolds is hal jordan and the movie gets made and the first thing that everybody's up in arms about is that the costume he wears is going to be CGI.  why is that a problem??  have you seen the spandex crap he wore in the crappy TV show??

see??  crap!!

anyway, reynolds gets cast and i'm OK with it.  yes, he has a tendency to "ryan-reynolds" it up a bit, but that's why you hire him, right?  and he's a solid actor, he can pull off a part if he wants.  besides, hal jordan was kind of a sarcastic, sly guy in the beginning before he got the ring.  he was a test pilot for christ's sake.  he has to have an attitude!!

i keep getting sidetracked here.  let's talk about the movie.  the CGI suit works for me.  the ring powers the suit so the suit is pure energy.  it makes perfect sense that they suit would be energy and not some kinda...suit.  and i think it looks pretty good.  also, the CGI backgrounds and the planet OA and the effects are pretty incredible.  they put a lot of time and effort and money into those.  the planet is awesome and i wish i would have seen it on the big screen.

that being said, i wish they would have put more money into the leading lady.  blake lively is a waste.  she can't stand toe to toe with reynolds and it seems reynolds is acting down to her.  they needed someone with a little more spirit.  i totally would have cast jen garner, but i love her...so...

the basic plot of the movie is this:  there a galactic police force patrolling the universe.  the universe is broken up into sectors and there is one member of each alien race chosen to police that sector.  the lanterns use a power ring that channels the power of will into constructs of pure energy limited only by what the ring-bearer can imagine.  the beings that started all this are a race known only as the guardians.  the are older than dirt and figured out how to channel the energy of emotions a long time ago. one of the emotions they tried to control was fear and that went all wonky.  fear overtook one of the guardians and he became parallax becoming so powerful the lanterns couldn't stop him save one: abin sur (played by temuera morrison). 

temuera morrison as abin sur and jango fett

he imprisoned parallax in a distant galaxy.  parallax, of course, escaped and began seeking revenge upon the lanterns.  abin sur was killed in the fight but before he died his ring chose his replacement, hal jordan.  the ring chooses those of the strongest will power and hal jordan is the first human to ever be chosen for the race is far too young according to the other aliens.  

the rest of the cast is actually pretty impressive: tim robbins, peter sarsgaard, mark strong and the voices of mike clark duncan and geoffrey rush.  let's start with peter sargaard shall we.  he plays hector hammond, one of GL's big baddies.  i don't remember why, but in the comics his head gets really big.  like literally. 

his character here is another one of those "my dad never really paid any attention to me so i'm going to stumble upon some major power and become an asshole villain...o, and i totally have a crush on the leading lady and if i can't have her no one can!!" guys.  it's been done so many times that it's hard to even blink an eye at the "evil" choices he makes.  and everything he does is just your typical bad guy stuff.  the character and the actor bring nothing new to this movie.  the one thing that i did kinda like was there was a direct parallel between what was happening to him and what was happening to jordan.  hector's father is played by tim robbins and he's basically just your average senator.  nothing special there.

mark strong takes another turn at a villain.  he plays sinestro, GL's really big bad.  in this story he hasn't turned to the other side, yet.  here he's one of the greatest lanterns around and kind of a leader taking orders from the guardians (the oldest being in the universe that created the GL corp).  strong does a good job here and the make-up does make him look a lot like sinestro.

of course, we don't get to see strong really chew up the scenery yet 'cos he's still a good guy in this movie.  we'll have to wait for the much anticipated sequel.

rounding out the cast is gefforey rush voicing tomar-re and MC duncan voicing kilowog.  these are two alien GL's that help train hal in using the ring.  their parts are really way too small in this film.  

kilowog and tomar-re

the movie tried to cram too much stuff into the first movie.  i think if they went with a basic origin theme, had a training montage when he first gets the ring, have hammond be THE main and only villain with just a hint at the bigger bad in parallax (and eventually, sinestro), stick with the fact that hal jordan is struggling with fear and courage and evetually overcomes it to become the greatest GL ever...then, this would have been a great movie.  but, instead it just felt crammed full of stuff, a little jumpy from scene to scene and the love story was weak.

the director, martin campbell, is a good director and has done some pretty damn good flicks, mostly bond films ("goldeneye", casino royale", "edge of darkness" [both the mini-series and the mel gibson versions]).  as good as he is he doesn't seem to really have a singular vision.  he works to serve the film, which is great, but for a sci-fi/action/comic flick you need a visually stunning director.  it also has the distinction of having four screenwriters.  for me that's usually not a good sign.  it's better to have a singular voice in my opinion.  that is unless it's a writing team, otherwise it's "too many cooks in the kitchen".

finally...overall, i think the flick had a few things that worked for me.  the CGI was brilliant, reynolds and strong do a good job and it could only be improved upon with a sequel that works.

bottomline:

2.5 outta 5.