While I can't say I'm a huge reader of comic books (despite considering myself a superhero geek), Green Lantern is one I've read, and very much enjoyed. Plus, he's the last of the Super Friends to get a live-action incarnation. And director Martin Campbell is, to me, one of Hollywood's more underrated talents, having given us the delightful Mask of Zorro, and by far the two best James Bond films of the past 30 years, GoldenEye and Casino Royale. So I was excited for the Green Lantern movie, despite the somewhat bad buzz.
But sometimes buzz is bad for a reason.
Green Lantern isn't awful, but it doesn't work, either as an adaptation of the source material, or as a stand-alone movie. It's so choppy as to be hard to follow, the characterizations are both shallow and over the top, the script is lacking in wit and intelligence, and there is no emotion to be found, despite a theme of will over fear that could easily resonate. Ryan Reynolds stars as Hal Jordan, a hotshot pilot who meets a dying alien named Abin Sur, who tells him that his 'power ring" has chosen him to join the Green Lantern corps, a group of intergalactic peace keepers. To do this, Jordan most overcome his long list of cliched character traits (he's selfish, doesn't commit to thing, is afraid of comparisons to the heroic father he barely knew, yadda yadda yadda) and earn the mantle of Green Lantern.
I've been amibivalent about Reynolds in the past, feeling he had a good sense of comic timing, but not convinced he was a strong actor who could carry a film. I still am not won over to the idea that he's a great actor by any means, but the failings of the film are not his fault. He gives it his all, and aquits himself nicely. Blake Lively, as love interest Carol Ferris, also does the best she can with the the material. The actor who is embarrased here is Peter Saarsgard, whose villain character is appalingly over the top even for a comic book film. Every time he's onscreen, the movie is almost unwatchable.
The action scenes are relatively fun, and the effects are probably pretty good if you seem them in a 2-D presentation. Director Campbell's penchant for making his bluescreen shots REALLY look like bluescreen shots hinders the work here, and it's as bad a post-production 3D conversion as I've seen. Strangely, the effects shots seem kind of flat, whereas the live-action dialogue sequences have that annoying "Viewmaster" effect, where the people stick out from the background but still have the depth of cardboard cutouts.
Still, all of these things could be forgiven if I were engaged in the material. If I were excited to fly with Green Lantern, if I felt stirrings of childlike excitement when he came to save the day. Because I love superheroes, there's a tiny element of that excitement, but only because of my pre-existing attachment to the character. it's hard for me to imagine the completely uninitiated falling in love with this the way the did with X-Men or Iron Man. This feels more like Daredevil. It wreaks of studio mandated cuts (I suspect editor Stuart Baird had more say over the final cut than director Campbell), and I found myself wondering whether an expanded directors cut might make more sense. it's not a good sign if you're familiar with the source material and still have no idea what's going on half the time.
All this said, I don't mean to imply that Green Lantern is a Michael Bay-style travesty. It's an acceptable diversion, the kind that's worth the price of admission at a dollar theater. While I have no particular intention to see it again in it's theatrical release, this isn't a Transformer 2 where I'd go to great lengths to avoid that. It's not a terrible film, just a very weak one. If you love superheroes, or see a lot of movies, it's probably worth a look. But if you're the type who is likely to only see two or three (or fewer) movies this summer, I would strongly recommend prioritizing films like Super 8 and X-Men: First Class, or even the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean far ahead of this one. It's the most forgettable superhero movie I've seen in a while. And, above all else, I judge this as a movie buff, not as a fan of Green Lantern. It's not that it strays so far far from the source material to offend the purist in me. It's that it fails badly enough as entertainment to disappoint the moviegoer in me.
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