Green Lantern is a film based on the DC Comic series by the same name. The Green Lantern Corps is made up of creatures from various sectors of the universe tasked with battling evil. Hal Jordan is selected as the Green Lantern for the sector containing Earth. The film largely deals with Hal Jordan coming to terms with being a member of the Green Lantern Corps and fighting off Parallax, a creature powered by fear rather than will. This of course is a severe truncation of what is otherwise a rather needlessly complicated story line.
For Hal Jordan to obtain the power of the Green Lantern through his Green Lantern ring he has to recite an oath. The oath ends with, “Beware my power . . . Green Lantern’s light!” Well, maybe what we should beware of is the power of a major studio to Green Light a picture and then fumble along for years and through several writers to capitalize on the people’s desire to watch comic book movies. What Green Lantern needed more than anything was someone to stop production, walk away from the project for a few years, and come back to it at some other time with fresh eyes. This was a movie that was forced into production. Everything about this movie tells you that no one had a grand vision and that the film was piecemealed together.
At one point Green Lantern was supposed to be a comedy — a send up of comic book characters and storylines. Elements of this would-be-comedy are still present in the film, although I am not certain how intentional these elements are. During Hal Jordan’s first major rescue he turns a helicopter into a toy car and sends it careening around a track. He almost does more damage with this maneuver as he prevents. The result is ridiculous to say the least. Later in the film one of the characters makes fun of the track. This internal send up may lead you to think the film is a bit irreverent. Well, it might be if it did not take itself so seriously the rest of the time. In addition, the irreverence is hokey at best.
Even the seriousness in the film is not compelling. The various soliloquies in the film are completely flat. I never felt inspired. Even the grandiose theme that courage is overcoming fear does little to enthuse.
A ton of various characters are introduced with explained or unexplained tensions running between them. Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) hates his dad, Hal, Carol, his students, etc. and he is a tertiary character. None of these relationships is developed.
The plot is as bloated as Peter Sarsgaard’s head. It is meandering and muddled. A myriad of plot points are introduced and then dropped. As an example, Hector becomes a malformed, hateful creature who is almost begging to scream, “It’s not a tumor.” The transformation makes him a telepath. He gains these powers when he conducts surgery on Abin Sur, the alien who crash-lands on earth. We are later told there was a second alien in Abin Sur and that Hector was infected with this alien. I guess we should believe that this second alien is Parallax, but that makes no sense since Parallax is clearly alive (sort of) and kicking. No more explanation is ever provided. I can suspend disbelief, but when this kind of stuff is piled around you at every turn it is hard to keep the blinders on. Plus, if you think that description was hard to follow, try keeping up with the million stories in this movie.
The film does provide some entertainment but there are so many shortcomings that it is impossible to view this film in a positive light.
I fear that Green Lantern will continue the production of poor to middling comic book movies to satiate the viewing public’s desire for fanciful escape and line the studios’ pocketbooks. But this attitude is shortsighted. The production of films like Green Lantern is an insult to viewers and comic book lovers. Both the comic book industry and the studios should take more time and care with these stories. They are seriously squandering an opportunity to create a good product that would inspire loyalty.
PARSI VERDICT: Someone should have turned off the Green Light.
See what the other half thinks: Haus’s Review.
I completely agree that it was a fine summer flick. It is clearly silly, loud, and ridiculous, but you know what? I enjoyed myself. Great review, Parsi! Check mine out when you get the chance!
I tend to agree that the story line for Green Lantern is certainly flawed, primarily due to the fact that Hal Jordan is a flawed character with no backstory that leads watchers to grab on to his character. The next Earth Green Lantern is John Stewart where the backstory that is done with him I believe would certainly draw more viewers into the Lantern story. It seems that the studio that is promoting these DC stories is being more reactive to the studio that is producing the Marvel heroes stories obviously in an attempt to have a conglomerate of heroes in one huge film for each respective distributor. I’ve always seen myself as more of a DC heroes fan but I can certainly see why Marvel would appeal to younger viewers because the movies they’ve put out within the last 10 years has been so much better.