GREEN LANTERN Reviews are Rolling In and they are Bad
Green Lantern hits theaters this weekend, and I've been pretty excited to see it. Now reviews for the film are starting to roll in and unfortunately most of them are bad. Regardless of the negative reviews I'm still going to see the movie for myself. I thought this might happen, but I hoped that it wouldn't.
Here are some of the reviews that I've come across, you can click on the sites name to read the full review:
Former Deadpool Ryan Reynolds plays a cocky slacker foul-up with dead daddy issues (yawn!), whose recruitment into the Green Lantern Corps prompts his own sidekick (Taika Waititi) to wonder whether “on their planet, ‘responsible’ means ‘asshole’”. Like the movies’ Peter Parker or Tony Stark — and unlike the comics’ straighter-arrow Hal Jordan — Reynolds does panicky comedy schtick to delay hard-to-sell oath-reciting heroism. Love interest Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) is a patchwork of Lois and Pepper — an exasperated ex who will come back to Hal when he becomes more heroic but is mainly here to be imperilled in the climax and poke fun at the skintight CGI outfit.
Though Warner/DC aren’t apparently building up to a Justice League movie the way Marvel are shooting The Avengers, this seems like a prologue for a bigger story to come. Thousands of alien Green Lanterns are seen in a crowd scene, but only two get to speak — Geoffrey Rush-voiced fish humanoid Tomar-Re, and Michael Clarke Duncan-voiced hippo/hulk drill sergeant Kilowog. Hal has to battle on his own, since the rest of the Corps sit this one out and let the rookie defend our expendable galactic sector. Peter Sarsgaard’s head-enlarged nerd Hector Hammond, the traditional distorted mirror/rival of the hero, seems more a preliminary sparring partner than a title fight opponent, while the film’s major menace is an angry, tentacled cloud. Mark Strong simmers on the sidelines as a Corps member in good standing whose 1950s-coined name (Sinestro — it was a more innocent age) and moustache suggest he might go evil before Green Lantern 2. When the climax comes, it feels less apocalyptic than just rushed, as the hero goes from complete wash-out to standing up to a primal force of the universe in about five minutes.
Martin Campbell made Zorro and Bond work as contemporary heroes, but doesn’t quite have the feel for poor old Hal Jordan. Green Lantern is dazzling in pieces, but we’ve seen too many sharper versions of the superhero origin story in the last few years. It’s not Jonah Hex, but the battery runs low too quickly.
There is a convoluted mythology partly explained by Hal's grudging mentor Sinestro (a literally red-faced Mark Strong) who talks a lot about "fear versus will". Similarly, the backstory at times threatens to bog down the present-day action which sees Peter Saarsgard as a bitter scientist who becomes completely twisted - physically as well as mentally - by the bad Parallax vibes. Meanwhile, Hal is grappling with his own fears about whether he is worthy of the ring, and of Carol. When it comes to good old-fashioned comic book values like saving the world and getting the girl, Hal seems only good for flirting with the idea then running - though never too far away.
Unlike his subject, director Martin Campbell (a veteran of shoot-'em-ups) is more at ease with action than soul-searching. There are memorable stunts spiked with dry humour, like Hal guiding a falling chopper carrying the Senator (Tim Robbins) by visualising a racetrack full of sharp turns. Other worlds in the Lanterns' jurisdiction are also realised in arresting detail, but there's a kitsch factor too. Hal's uniform is made of light energy, fashioned in CGI and quite fetching, but Sinestro and Abin Sur are flashbacks to the days of clunky '60s sci-fi. Strong still manages to be intimidating, but the present villains are too goofy. The bigger disappointment is that Hal's own personal demons aren't fully drawn. After all, what's the point of glowing if it's not dark enough?
I don't like "Green Lantern."
I think the movie is pretty much inert, artificial and dead on arrival.
First, there's no way my boys are seeing it. The movie in general appears to be written for eight-year-olds, which is appropriate, and a smart move. But Parallax and Hector Hammond, the villains of the film, seem to be in a different film, a much more inappropriate film about a giant weird turd cloud with the head of the Wizard Of Oz that sucks the skeletons out of people before they explode, and his human assistant who grows a disgusting Elephant Man head in scenes where he screams in pain and writhes on the floor like it's a David Cronenberg film. Second, I don't think is the first building block of a world I want to spend more time in. Unless there are some big choices made behind the scenes on a second film, I don't have any faith in this as a franchise, much less step one in the DC Universe. Third, this is not the role for Reynolds, and it's not his fault. The marketing is more successful than the movie, and made promises the movie just can't fulfill. Martin Campbell is as wrong for this film as he was right for "Casino Royale." In general, I was deflated and depressed by the film I saw.
In a summer where we've had some good superhero films already and we're seeing people really start to have fun with the genre, "Green Lantern" stands out as a pretty major misstep. Visually, it's an eyesore. It is the first genuinely ugly film shot by Dion Beebe, and between the production design by Grant Major and the New Orleans locations, it feels artificial, like the entire thing was shot on a small, dingy backlot. It feels like a pretty major missed opportunity, and I have a feeling this will be a lot more "The Shadow" than Tim Burton's "Batman" when it comes to the general public. I can't imagine word of mouth being any good for the film, especially not for people who are new to the character and the world.
The ring may not make mistakes when it chooses a new Green Lantern, but plenty of mistakes were made in bringing "Green Lantern" to the screen, and in the end, I have a feeling this is our one and only trip to Oa.
Muscular, well-cast launch of a proposed new franchise can't help but replay a lot of familiar notes.
At least for some members of the public, Green Lantern will prompt the question of how many more comics-based superheroes with awesome powers and responsibilities we really need. Dramatically tart in certain scenes but more often just spinning its wheels doing variations on similar moments from previous episodes in the lives of likewise endowed relatives in the DC and Marvel universes, Warner Bros.' attempt to launch a major new fantasy action hero franchise serves up all the requisite elements with enough self-deprecating humor to suggest it doesn't take itself too seriously. But familiarity may begin to breed creeping signs of contempt, if not in immediate negative box office results then in a general fatigue with such enterprises that's bound to set in sooner or later.
Not quite doing for an untested superhero what he did for James Bond in Casino Royale, director Martin Campbell seems to most relish the amusing character of Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a brilliant nerdy scientist enlisted by the government to examine Abin Sur's corpse. Thrilled by the privilege, he is unwittingly contaminated by the exposure and quickly transformed into a mind-reading Elephant Man lookalike with a zealous propensity for the dark side and a score to settle with his bigshot politician dad (Tim Robbins). Sarsgaard has great fun with the role in a performance that increasingly seems like a sly imitation of John Malkovich at his most arch.
By the law of averages, we had to get a stinker eventually. And, honkity honk. What's this coming round the corner? It's Green Lantern, here to almost single-handedly redress the balance.
Because this superhero flick, based on the popular DC Comics series, is two finger-drumming hours of puffed-up, prancing tripe, that couldn't have been any more irritating if the lead role was played by that bellowing Go Compare fatso.
The film's a five-way pile up of ropey plotting, terrible editing, pompous dialogue, pointless 3D and atrocious effects, and it feels like it goes on forever.
Unfortunately, the idea that Geoff Johns' "Secret Origins" would be used as a template are dashed fairly early in favor of a blueprint that comes from previous comic book hits "Iron Man" and "Spider-Man." While the general story structure is the same, the movie fails to avoid some of the biggest pitfalls that comes with comic book movies, because often what works great when being read doesn't work when you have the same words recited by actors. And really, there is no caliber of actor that could make the big cheesy speeches that permeate this movie work.
While on paper, Ryan Reynolds should make a decent Hal Jordan, his limited range as an actor is painfully obvious as he's essentially playing the same character he's played in every other movie only this time wearing CG spandex. He gives it a fine college effort to bring his usual charms to the character, but he's no Robert Downey Jr. and the dialogue he's given does little to make Hal likeable. Even worse is Blake Lively, grossly miscast as Carol Ferris, making her come across like a Valley Girl than the tough woman who will one day run Ferris Aircraft. The romance scenes between the two of them that's constantly shoved down our throats is probably the worst part of the movie, partially because they're so mismatched.
There's sure to be someone out there in the cosmos who enjoys this take on Green Lantern--small children and those without overly-critical tastes in entertainment--but it just fails on so many levels, both as a movie and as a comics adaptation, that it's easily one of the bigger disappointments of the summer.
So it looks like the guys over at Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment don't know what they are doing after all. Perhaps Chrsistopher Nolan in the only person over on the studio lot that knows how to tell a good comic book story.
If you come across any good reviews please let us know.