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Green Lantern’s light is not very bright – review
No matter how bad things get, something good is out there, just over the horizon…
Hal Jordan is a test pilot chosen by a “dying, purple alien” named Abin Sur to take his place and become a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic police force tasked with keeping peace within the universe. Chosen as he has the ability to overcome fear, Hal Jordan must rise to task of not only dispelling the doubt within himself but fending off the twin threats of Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) and Parallax to stop Earth from being destroyed.
Even for a comic book, the premise of Green Lantern is slightly out there and more than a little silly and at times director Martin Campbell (The Mask of Zorro, Casino Royale) recognises this, having a few laughs at the film’s expense. However what’s so surprising about Green Lantern is just how bog standard the narrative and direction are. It’s sorely missing a spark that enlivens proceedings and more often than not the film strings scenes together in a most obvious and predictable manner. Its by-the-numbers directing and scripting mean whole sequences lack any visible energy and characters lack the necessary chemistry in their interactions with each other. Featuring plot holes the size of asteroids, Mark Strong’s Sinestro tries to valiantly plug them with chunks of exposition, the film teetering on being distinctly pedestrian. There’s a rule in filmmaking, “show, don’t tell” and Green Lantern has to get through so much mythology that it educates the audience at every opportunity, making the drama rather inert.
Much is squandered, whether it’s through the unsatisfying relationships (Hammond, Ferris and Jordan, in a love triangle?), its disappointing villains (Hammond – hammy, Parallax – CG) or the romance which is by the book and lethargic. Even worse is the squandering of Oa and the Green Lantern corps as they’re relegated to secondary status as Jordan’s plight is given more screen time than the discovery of this new universe. Animated film Green Lantern: First Flight managed to introduce the corps in a better, more organic way, staying away from Earth and embracing the galactic possibilities, by comparison this film feels grounded.
Reynolds is fine but the rest of the cast make the smallest of impacts and despite the whole world being at stake it all feels very low key and a little humdrum. That said I didn’t find Green Lantern to be a total bore, seeing Jordan create various constructs (objects his ring can create through will) is fun and the climactic scene is good if a little obvious in how the script calls attention to it earlier on. Green Lantern is not a disaster; it’s just a disappointingly average take on a mythology that deserved better.
What they said about…Green Lantern
I haven’t done this feature as often as I would have liked (once!) but on both occassions the film in question has managed to disappoint critics. Will Green Lantern follow the same trajectory as Sucker Punch and crash and burn in cinemas? Probably not, it’s been heavily marketed and that usually means that the opening weekend will be respectable (apparently it’s on track to gross $58 million in the US). The true test will come in the following weeks, if word of mouth is as bad as critics’ take on the film then I can’t see it being one of the top grossers of the summer. Warner Bros will be expecting this one to at least make its budget back (somewhere between $150 to $200 million).
I’ve mentioned Green Lantern a few times and was hoping the Martin Campbell who directed Casino Royale and The Mask of Zorro would turn up. I guess he didn’t. I’ll be going to see it (my friend seems to be excited by it), so I’ll be able to give my own opinion on it soon enough.
Here’s a few quotes from a sample of reviews:
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.
Read more at Empire
Muscular, well-cast launch of a proposed new franchise can’t help but replay a lot of familiar notes.
Read more at THR
At this point the best I can hope for is that the movie makes enough to warrant a sequel and somebody else can come in and make a good Green Lantern film using the excellent existing elements.
Read more at BadAss Digest
In a summer stuffed with superheroes, this underwhelming offering will likely leave you jaded. How it could have used some of Thor’s charm and The Green Hornet’s chutzpah.
It’s not entirely Green Lantern’s fault that it’s the third superhero film to hit theaters in the last two months, or the 30th or so in the last decade, but at this point in the genre the same old origin story simply isn’t enough. Instead of being bold with Green Lantern’s out-there source material, Campbell and company have reverted to the tiresome, too-familiar mean.
Read more at Cinema Blend
Campbell’s successful re-booting of the James Bond franchise in Casino Royale may just have been the thing that helped greenlight Hal Jordan and his inter-galactic friends. He brings the same ‘less frills, more thrills’ approach to bear here.
Read more at Den of Geek
There are movies willed to life by the passion of their creators, and there are movies like Green Lantern, which are willed to life strictly by market forces.
Read more at The AV Club
I have no idea how Green Lantern purists will react, but the film as it is remains a weird combination of ghee-whiz kid-friendly superhero antics and truly disturbing horror elements. That the film is not quite the triumph we wanted may be tragic. That the film as it stands works at all may qualify as a miracle.
Read more at Mendelson’s Memo’s
Not quite the mammoth disaster that some are labelling it, nevertheless, Green Lantern is a big disappointment and has to rely constantly on its star to make things work and compensate for a weak script and a director who is clearly ill at ease with CGI. Reynolds should use that magic ring of his to summon up a new agent who is capable of finding him a big-screen role (and potential franchise) worthy of his talents
Read more at HeyUGuys
And I thought the film had a singular identity in a genre flooded with derivation, which is no small feat.
For me, it’s great summer fun.
Read more at InContention
Green Lantern Wonder-Con trailer
Although I’m loathe to put extended trailers on the site, especially ones that give a fair chunk of the film away, its bright outside and the sun has affected my brain. 
I for one liked the first trailer and since then I’ve read Green Lantern: Rebirth. Didn’t understand a single thing about it since I’m relatively new to the Green Lantern corps mythology and the only thing I had encountered involving the Green Lantern was the animated film First Flight (which I thought was decent).
Anyhoo, in this soon to be post-Potter world Warner Bros needs to strike big with its properties outside of Potter and Nolan’s Bat-verse. With Martin Campbell at the helm I’m hoping for something more likeGoldeneye/Casino Royale/Zorro type of form and less like Legend of Zorro/Edge of Darkness/Vertical Limit.
