Review 204: Green Lantern

Green Lantern is... well to put it straight forward, it's a mess. As Jeremy Clarkson would say, "It looks great, drives like a Crème brûlée",

In a universe as vast as it is mysterious, a small but powerful force has existed for centuries. Protectors of peace and justice, they are called the Green Lantern Corps. A brotherhood of warriors sworn to keep intergalactic order, each Green Lantern wears a ring that grants him superpowers. But when a new enemy called Parallax (Clancy Brown) threatens to destroy the balance of power in the Universe, their fate and the fate of Earth lie in the hands of their newest recruit, the first human ever selected: Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds). Hal is a gifted and cocky test pilot, but the Green Lanterns have little respect for humans, who have never harnessed the infinite powers of the ring before. But Hal is clearly the missing piece to the puzzle, and along with his determination and willpower, he has one thing no member of the Corps has ever had: humanity. With the encouragement of fellow pilot and childhood sweetheart Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), if Hal can quickly master his new powers and find the courage to overcome his fears, he may prove to be not only the key to defeating Parallax... he will become the greatest Green Lantern of all.

The plot sounds great but trust me on this, it isn't. The problem for me is that the filmmakers didn't know what they wanted Green Lantern to be e.g. a Spider-Man esque superhero drama, an Iron Man, cool, fun, superhero drama, or a Star Wars sci fi epic and it's ended up as a sort of browny-green mush of all three.

 

Green Lantern wants to be a story about courage, overcoming fear and what you can achieve if you put your mind to it, but it fails on almost all accounts. The screenplay by Michael Goldenberg, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim and Greg Berlanti never really takes flight, feels unfocused and just meanders taking way too long for anything to happen.

The film contains action but not that much of it. For most of its 114 minute runtime, we're treated to conversations between Hal & Carol, Hal & Hector  as well as Hal moping around feeling he's not worthy of being a Green Lantern. This would play out much better if any of them were actually good conversationalists, alas    and unfortunately, whenever the film was not focused on Oa, it felt like it was mearly killing time until Parallax arrived. 

Green Lantern was directed by Martin Campbell who also directed the Bond films 1995's Goldeneye & 2006's Casino Royale as well as The Mask of Zorro arguably the best Zorro movie, but here  resulting in a frantic, dispirited and uneven. He stages the action scenes so frenetically he appears to be cut off from the rest of the film and not having his heart in the making of it.
The problem I also think is that Martin Campbell old school type of film director. I could litteraly see him struggling to keep this special effects overload under control. The editing is choppy, attention deficit (there are some scenes in the film that lead to choppy flashbacks e.g. during the drone fight scene Hal looses control of his plane and there are these random flashbacks of his dad being killed in a plane crash)

even the score by James Newton Howard is electronic nonsense 

This is a well made, good looking film however; the special effects are pretty impressive for the most part, though the character design for Parallax looks like a Giant Turd and the CG Green Lantern costumes admittedly looks pretty silly.
And for a superhero who can create anything using his imagination, the constructs that Hal produces range from silly to downright cartoonish i.e. using his ring to create a Hot Wheels car to save a senator's life - I really wish I was making that up.

The cinematography is beautiful and captures the beauty of Oa, the production design is spectacular, Oa in particular is an idealic planet with cities and skyscrapers covering its surface with points of Green Lantern energy shooting from the surface into space. The costumes by gorgeous, the props are well crafted, the make up is rich, the creature design is incredible, the scenery is breathtaking, the sound effects are cool. The films attempts at humour were also very hit and miss while there were some nice flashes sprinkled throughout, a lot of other times, they came off as cheap and cringy.

The acting is clueless; the performances of Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively and Peter Sarsgaard in particular are incompetent in this film.
Ryan Reynolds feels badly miscast as Hal Jordon, he starts off as cocky, irresponsible, underachieving pilot/playboy - kinda like Ryan Reynolds and never seems to grow into an into a likeable protagonist.  
I realise that the point is that Hal has no idea why he's picked doesn't believe he has what it takes to be a Green Lantern at first. But at some point we expect a showcase of elements that made him such a worthy candidate for a Green Lantern such as his determination and strong will. No chance, these elements very rarely shine through. Hal quits his training as a Green Lantern after a stern lecture from respected Green Lantern Sinestro (Mark Strong) who judges Hal as unworthy of Abin Sur's replacement and Reynolds signature brand of sarcasm certainly didn't help.

Compared to Christopher Reeve as Superman, Christian Bale as Batman, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man or more recent like Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man or Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Reynolds just doesn't bring that wow factor to the role of Hal Jordan.

Blake Lively from the CW's Gossip Girl is wet and boring as Carol Ferris and doesn't have any of that sassy appeal or strong independence that other Superhero love interests e.g. Kirsten Dunst is Mary Jane Watson or Margot Kidder as Lois Lane or Natalie Portman as Jane Foster or Gweneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts,

Peter Sarsgaard is just utterly, utterly useless as Hector Hammond, he's normally a terrific actor but here he is just reduced to playing the embarrassingly thankless role of a winny scientist, who becomes possessed by Parallax and becomes his hapless henchman.

Parallax as a villain was also a major letdown, he's not even an actual character, he was more of a plot device to serve as an antagonist and the only thing he had going for him was being voiced by the great Clancy Brown who manages to inject some gravitas into an otherwise underwritten CG creation. In the comics, Parallax is primordial embodiment of fear but here, all of that is lost in see of CGI and gross character design.

Mark Strong is the sole standout as Thaal Sinestro; Sinestro is the leader of the Corps, so he is in pole position as far as they're concerned when Hal arrives and he's completely committed to their cause. But he can also be arrogant and dismissive of recruits who don't meet his standards. He's a military guy who's certainly very strict and unsure of Hal because he's the first human who's been made into a Green Lantern. So he's very much a hard taskmaster but's all done for well intention, noble reasons because he genuinely believes in the Corps and what they stand for and in peace throughout the universe. Strong brings the right amount of authority and  to the role, I just wish it was in a better film.

Geoffrey Rush and Michael Clarke Duncan are sadly wasted as the voices of fellow Green Lanterns Tomar-Re and Kilowog, they were good, they just go drastically underused and have little screentime and bearly leave an impact as a result.

Taika Waititi, Tim Robbins, Temuera Morrison and Angela Basset round out the cast as Thomas Kalmaku, Robert Hammond, Abin Sur and Amanda Waller, though I can't say I was impressed with their unmemorable performances. 

Green Lantern is a huge disappointment, but I wouldn't mind seeing a reboot, 1.5/5

The Anonymous Critic.