I went into this one with serious reservations. I've read as many online reviews as I could find, and the majority of them have been horrendous. It wasn't just the paid critics that were bashing this movie. It was also the fanboys, who seriously need to lighten up when it comes to comic book movies. Be glad the movie is being made in the first place, and quit whining about little details that really don't matter. Anyway...
The movie starts with a monologue about the creation of the Green Lantern Corp. and the planet Oa. We're told of how Abin Sur (a Green Lantern) defeated, and imprisoned the fear mongering Parallax. It's kinda boring, and it's a wasted opportunity to start the movie off in an exciting way, but was probably done just to give Geoffrey Rush something to do other than his 4 minutes of screen time as Tomar-Re ( also a Green Lantern). I would have rather learned this with Hal.
We meet test pilot, Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), as he rushes to the airfield to participate in a demonstration pitting human pilots against unmanned fighter planes. His wing-man is Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), who's father owns Ferris Aircraft, and whom he has a love/hate relationship with. There's a "Top Gun" vibe early on in the film, that worked well, but goes away quickly. No real back story is given about them, other than he forgot her birthday once, there was some romance once, and that they had known each other their who lives. Hal is an incredibly fearless pilot, but a bit of a jerk. We learn of his father's death during a test flight through flashbacks, but we never learn exactly how it effected Hal growing up. We just know he's haunted by the image of his father's death.
After surviving a crash himself, Hal is transported by a green force field many miles away to a swamp where a dying purple alien (Abin Sur) has crashed landed on Earth after battling the recently escaped Parallax. Abin Sur's ring has chosen Hal to be his replacement in the Green Lantern Corp. Before dying, Abin Sur gives him the power ring, and tells him to say the oath to the lantern.
We then cut to Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a biology teacher, who is summoned by the government to perform an autopsy on the alien body of Abin Sur, but becomes infected by the DNA of Parallax found withing Abin Sur's wounds.
Hal eventually figures out the oath, with a little help from the lantern, and is transported to the planet Oa, where he is fitted with an official Green Lantern Corp uniform, and meets Sinestro (Mark Strong), and Kilowog (Michael Clarke Duncan), who assist in training Hal how to use his new-found powers.
There's a lot happening in Green Lantern, and I could spend a lot of time breaking down the many plot points, and characters, but this is a review, so I should give some opinions about Green Lantern as a film.
Overall, I honestly liked it. It's flawed, considerably, but it has many things to appreciate.
The biggest waste of talent was Mark Strong as Sinestro. He was great in the role, but had little screen time. Not everyone will know going in what the future will hold for the character, but everyone will agree that Strong's performance was the most interesting.
This is the central theme to all my complaints about Green Lantern: runtime. At 105mns, it barely has time to cover the origin story of Hal Jordan, back story on the Green Lantern Corp and Oa, and make a compelling adversary out of Hector Hammond and Parallax. This truly should have been about 130mns long, so they could flesh out the characters more, and make you care enough to want to see a sequel.
The CGI was good, so I'm not going to harp on what looked believable or not. Not much of it did, but that's something I accepted going in. If you watched the movie trailer, and expected something better, then that's your fault. There were some really cool moments, that were fun regardless.
Ultimately, the 13 year old inside of me, who loved seeing Green Lantern brought to life, won over the 36 year old movie snob, who compares every comic book movie to The Dark Knight. You'll have to watch it for yourself.
Rated PG-13
Runtime 105mns
