Green Lantern Review

My take on the Green Lantern movie, and the things it made me think of.

I’ll start off by saying a few things: Firstly, despite my passion for comics, I am not someone who expects slavish devotion on the part of movies to the source material. As long as I feel they have the spirit of a character right, I am generally okay with re-interpretations needed for the big screen, particularly if they are adapting an ongoing character with years of continuity. Secondly, I am a fan of Ryan Reynolds, going all the way back to Two Guys and a Girl (I didn't watch it at all when there was a pizza place involved). I find him charismatic and entertaining. Thirdly, it had been a pretty long week at work, and I was ready to sit back and be entertained.

I will say that the movie accomplished the last for me. As I write this, the movie has a 23% rating from critics on RottenTomatoes.com, and a 72% "liked it" rating from viewers.

Additionally, Leonard Malkin finished his review by saying, "But despite those caveats..." (The caveats here being that the movie tries to do too much, with too many characters and too many subplots) "...the film offers a dazzling array of visual effects, a likable hero, a beautiful leading lady, a colorful villain, and a good backstory. It also doesn’t take itself too seriously. Green Lantern entertained me, and I can’t dismiss that because of its imperfections."

Roger Ebert, the critic I respect most gave the movie 2.5 stars, and says, "The bottom line: This is a comic-book movie. Fans of the Green Lantern (in his intergalactic story mode and not his earthbound TV series) will no doubt enjoy its visualizations and its references to details of the back story that escaped me. There's a whole lot going on. We don't really expect subtle acting or nuanced dialogue. We appreciate an effective villain. We demand one chaste kiss between hero and heroine, but no funny stuff. We enjoy spectacular visuals like the Green elders, who are immortal and apparently spend eternity balancing on top of towering pillars. 'Green Lantern' delivers all of those things, and for what it's worth, I liked it more than 'Thor.'" I'm not sure I liked it more than Thor, myself, but certainly think the two were much closer than the praise heaped on Thor vs. the disdain for Green Lantern would indicate.

Malkin's criticism is on the money, in my opinion. At 1:45 in length, this movie tried to cover too much back story, introduce too many characters, and too much sub-plot. A couple of visits to Oa with the Guardians and some of the Green Lanterns there being introduced. Hector Hammond back on earth, and the big bad, an interesting take on Parallax. Not to mention the introduction of Dr. Amanda Waller. She has a small role in the film, but Angela Basset has such great screen presence that she still feels important. I can't help but wonder if this is the DC equivalent of having Nick Fury show up after the credits in Iron Man. All of this on top of Hector Hammond, a relationship sub plot between Hal and Carol Ferris... it really does feel like a little too much.

I'll be honest. I think the story would have been simpler if they had just told the comic book fall of Sinestro as the main plot. Hal gets the ring, gets trained by the other Lanterns, including Sinestro, and after overcoming some kind of threat, goes to see Sinestro. He finds Sinestro is using his ring to rule his people, and we get a battle between the two. Cleaner, I think, and fewer characters needed.

Even so, I found the effects in this movie to be awesome, the acting to vary from solid to excellent, and the story to be good. It might be a little confusing for those who do not know the Green Lantern mythos, although my wife liked it, and doesn't know that much about it other than the whole "space cops" idea.

All in all, for fans of the genre, this will be a fun movie. And even though there is a set-up for something of a sequel in the credits, I don't know that DC has managed to really hit it out of the park here. I'm not sure why it is that Marvel has had so much more success on the big screen than DC (outside of Batman, of course) but I don't think that Green Lantern is going to change this.


Green Lantern opened on over 6,000 screens, whereas Thor opened on 3,955, and X-Men First Class opened on 6,900. Thor had an easier time holding on to those screens when it opened a month and a half ago, and it opened on a lot of IMAX and 3D screens, which proved to be a very successful strategy for the movie. Predictions are that Green Lantern will open to about $60 Million, which will put it ahead of X-men: First Class, but below Thor. So far, it looks like Thor is going to be the #1 hero this summer, unless Captain America can show him how it is done.

X-Men: First Class

A break from my musings on the New DCU. I went out last night and caught X-Men: First Class last night. Overall, I found it a really fun movie. As I have probably mentioned before, I never go to a comic book movie expecting to see the comic book faithfully reproduced. It happens sometimes, and I don't mind it when it does, but I also understand that sometimes a less episodic medium requires different approaches. And, of course, there is no budgetary concerns in a comic book. The most amazing effects can be done with no problems whatsoever, as long as your artist can draw it.

So, I have no issues with the fact that this comic takes various ideas from different X-men story lines and mashes them together to form its own story. The movie is set during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The Hellfire Club is prominently feature, including Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw, January Jones as the White Queen, Emma Frost and supported by Azazel, a demonic-looking teleporter (Azazel is only really shown to be a teleporter and swordsman in this movie, not touching on all the other powers he has in the comics) and Riptide, a character who has been changed from the comics into being able to generate whirlwinds rather than being able to spin at incredible speeds and generate bone-like weapons.

The "First Class" was made up of Banshee, Havoc, Angel (but not Warren Worthington), Mystique, Beast and Darwin. On top of this were a young Magneto and Professor X, though older than the characters who make up the class.

The acting overall was quite good. The story flowed well, and the effects were top-notch. This was a great prequel to the X-men movies. I definitely recommend seeing to anyone who enjoys a good super-hero movie, but go in knowing that there are differences. Banshee is not Irish, and neither is Moira MacTaggert. Emma Frost here in her first appearance already has the ability to turn her body to diamond, something that didn't appear until much later in the comics. Riptide was never part of the Hellfire club, nor was Azazel.

If you are a purist, and those kinds of changes are frustrating for you, then you may want to skip it. If You don't know the history of these characters in intimate detail or are able to enjoy a movie that is an alternate look at these kinds of things, this is a fun movie definitely worth seeing. There are all kinds of nice touches. The effect used for the teleporter Azazel is the same as used for Nightcrawler. In the comics, Azazel is Nightcrawler's father. The origin of Magneto's helmet is covered. There are jokes about Xavier's hair. Overall, they really had fun with this movie, and it shows.