Green Lantern 3D – (Jon’s Take) Review

Revitalized in Showcase #22 in 1959, Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern has spun the interest of fans through decades of potent stories of intergalactic turmoil, creating one of comics most fully developed and deep mythologies. Like the Miami Heat, DC Comics has their own “Big Three” with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, but I would exclude the latter and insert Green Lantern. His stories are always engaging and entertaining, as seen recently in the arc Blackest Night. Visualizing this into film, one would look at George Lucas and Star Wars for the template, but instead Martin Campbell’s blockbuster follows the cliched route of origin stories, eliminating the wonder and awe of the space opera for the tried and true and boring “hero saves the girl” story. This effectively squanders the vast potential of the character.

There were lots of pre-release criticisms centered on the casting of Ryan Reynolds and the look of his outfit. In context of what the film offers and how it’s described, the glowing green aura of the outfit works remarkably well, and as for Reynolds’ casting, he is incredibly wasted, as the main culprit of the film isn’t the villain Parallax, but the thinly written script. For decades of wonderful mythology, the screenplay by Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim, and Michael Goldenberg is sorely undefined. Hal’s characterization of a spoiled kid, who has lived under the greatness of his father, is as deep as Hal gets. Reynolds is given nothing to do. Once his charm shines through, and it does by nature of the talented actor, it’s in the oddest of times, often hurting the film, like when Tomar-Re finds him parading around in his outfit for the first time. Hector Hammond (played awfully by Peter Sarsgaard) is cringe-inducing and campy. Parallax, I guess, is the intergalactic baddie we sort of wanted for the film, but the real villain that fans wanted – Sinestro – will have to wait for the sequel…if we get a sequel.

Green Lantern does excel in everything unrelated to Earth. Oa is wonderfully conceived, as is the other Green Lantern Corps members. The special FX and 3D are superb. If only we got more of Sinestro, Kilowog, and Tomar-Re, maybe the film would have felt unique. Instead, for a film that centers its story around energy, the film has none, playing everything one-note, and within this simple tried and true superhero story line that worked fine before the likes of Iron Man or Batman Begins, it bores. 10 years ago, Green Lantern would be considered one hell of a superhero movie. Now days, it comes after the mentality change of the genre, which has given us stunningly deep, real takes, and while one doesn’t require that realism for a space opera, Green Lantern follows an out-of-date template. It’s watchable because of Mark Strong as Sinestro and the sequences on Oa, and the film is lucky to have those. We simply do not care about the spoiled Hal Jordan and the cliche that the hero gets the girl in the end.

Rating:

Jon Peters

I love film. That is all.

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