I finally watched Green Lantern

[Flatfrog]

A few days ago I saw Green Lantern in a supermarket for £2 and thought - ah, what the hell? I gave it a miss when it came out for any number of reasons, primarily MovieBob's cry of desperate pain in the guise of a review, and I was intrigued to see quite how bad it was.

I thought it was OK.

I mean, it wasn't brilliant, but it felt like a fairly bog-standard superhero movie with a silly premise - said silly premise being 'superhero with power to make big green objects with the power of his mind'. Basically The Mask. Impossible to take seriously, but within its own parameters, enjoyable.

On my relatively decent but not amazing TV the effects looked pretty good. The characters were cliched but fine, there were some relatively good comic beats, especially the Superman parody when the girlfriend sees through the secret identity the moment he appears.

So - speaking as someone who has never read the comics or felt any particular desire to do so (see above comments regarding the silliness of the premise), I thought it was easily at the same level of competence as Thor, Incredible Hulk, maybe even X-Men.

I assume the reason the fans hated it so much was because it didn't give sufficient respect to the source material. But given that there aren't that many Green Lantern fans anyway, I'm interested to wonder why it failed so badly. The only thing I can assume is that they fucked up the marketing, promising the viewers something they didn't deliver.

 

[Kolby Jack]

I thought it was OK.

Same. I really don't understand the bile for this movie. Is it great? No. Is it good? Not very. But it's watchable enough and it stuck surprisingly close to the GL mythos. I don't even like Hal Jordan as a character, really, but I thought the movie did as well as it could with such a boring character to build off of.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

I never got the burning hatred for Green Lantern. Admittedly I'm not a fan of the comics so maybe they utterly bent the characters over a spanking saddle and went to town on their hindquarters with something spiky and unpleasant, but I have no strong feelings about the film at all.

It's just there. It's fine, it fills the space. Not lovingly sticking its hand down my trousers but not beating me round the head either. Like the chocolate on a hotel pillow. Doesn't make you vomit but not remarkable enough to leave any lasting impression at all.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I never watched the whole thing but I've always been morbidly curious about it. There's a lot of good that could have been put into it. I only just realized that I probably missed a great thing by skipping out on the Green Lantern animated series but, I never got over some things with the Green Lantern movie. Like how Paralax was turned into a floating poo-monster when it's really supposed to be a yellow space bug, literally the God of Fear.

I'm not even too sure where they could have gone with the movie though...focus on street-crime and criminals on Earth for movie one only to reveal The Corps at the end? Have Sinestro go Yellow in act 2 for a decent final boss fight in act 3? Bring back a silver-age villain for the movie?

What I have seen of Green Lantern though, it looks a lot more watchable than Batman & Robin but still about on par with Ghost Rider 2...besides, I thought Jonah Hex quickly took the crown when it came to Gods-Awful DC Comics based movies.

 

[krazykidd]

I thought it was terrible. It's one of the worst recent superhero movies . Nothing really happened. And i kinda hated the actor playing green lantern. Iv'e also never read the comics and know almost nothing about GL. The movie felt kinda generic

 

[Queen Michael]

Here's my take on it. Remember, I'm not what you'd call a Green Lantern fan. I don't dislike him in any way, though, and I have read some of the comics. Here's why I don't like the movie:

The entire talk about "courage" and "fear" didn't work. It felt rushed. It works better in the comics, because they take place in a world where that kind of thing happens.

The part in the beginning where Hal's boss chews him out for defeating the computer-controlled planes makes no sense. Why chew him out for doing his best against the planes, just as he was told? Especially when the entire test was stupid to begin with. If the company manufacturing the planes are also the ones in charge of the test, then staging a defeat and passing it off as real would be easier than finding pot at Woodstock. It's like a chocolate test, where all Cadbury chocolate is given top marks by Cadbury employees.

After about half the movie, the writers suddenly decided that Hector and Hal knew each other.

The Guardians of Oa decide that Hal cannot be trusted to be a ring-wearing member of the Green Lantern Corps, since he's too irresponsible. So instead they send him back to Earth, and let him keep the ring. Meaning he's just as powerful, but no longer under the command of responsible officers. Instead, he's free to do as he likes with a super-powerful weapon.

They gave way too little screentime to Sinestro, Killowog and the other aliens.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

After about half the movie, the writers suddenly decided that Hector and Hal knew each other.

This bit is corrected in the Extended Cut, which incorporates a scene at the very beginning with Hal and Hector as kids on the day Hal's dad dies.

 

[Leemaster777]

I thought it was OK.

Same.

I'll jump on the "I don't hate Green Lantern" train.

It was fine. Not brilliant, and not even as good as any of the recent Marvel movies (disregarding the first Hulk movie, but including the second). But it was serviceable. Passable. Standard. Something I'd watch if it was presented to me, but not something I'd actively seek out the time to watch.

 

[Avaholic03]

It was one of those odd action movies where the plot wasn't the worst thing about it. The story wasn't great, but at least it made some sense. However, for a big budget movie, the CGI was absolute shit. Looked like something a kid did in his basement and put on youtube. It was so bad, it was distracting. And that's a huge problem for a movie that relies on CGI so heavily.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Agreed, I don't really understand all the disdain for the movie. To be blunt, I've never liked Green Lantern, I think the power of "has a magic ring that he can create stuff with" is incredibly lame.

That being said, the movie was a good way to kill a few hours, the only part I really despised was how they created Ryan Reynolds outfit out of CGI instead of just putting him in a damn costume, felt really bizarre and unnecessary.

 

[silver wolf009]

Agreed, I don't really understand all the disdain for the movie. To be blunt, I've never liked Green Lantern, I think the power of "has a magic ring that he can create stuff with" is incredibly lame.

I disagree with that. I think the versatility of the rings lends itself to a lot of really great situations. Swords, guns, traps, containment bubbles, when you've got something based off imagination, you've got a lot of room to go.

Plus, I really like the crystal/glass look it has in recent adaptations. Looks really cool.

 

[Grumman]

I disagree with that. I think the versatility of the rings lends itself to a lot of really great situations. Swords, guns, traps, containment bubbles, when you've got something based off imagination, you've got a lot of room to go.

The most interesting thing they could do with the Green Lantern, in my opinion, is to show this versatility by having a number of Green Lanterns who each use a subset of this power that fits their personality. I'm vaguely aware that they supposedly do this in the comics.

Maybe one is an engineer who uses the ring to create working constructs, the second is a martial artist who uses the ring to augment their attacks, and the third is a bruiser who simply summons walls of force to pummel the enemy into submission. Or something like that.

 

[Gennadios]

Thor and the first two XMen were pretty damn standard superhero movies, but I don't agree that GL was on that level.

To be honest, I saw the movie for free on a rather long flight and even then I decided to stop watching an hour in in favor of seeing what all the hoopla about MLP was (enjoyed the show a hell of a lot more than Green Lantern!)

Biggest issue was probably no real personality in the protagonist. Thor was silly and stupid, and the X-Men just never excited me as much as the later superhero movies did, but the character portrayals were semi-fresh and in the case of the X-Men at least they had some decent group dynamics to cover up the fact that the cast barely had anything to do.

Reynold's GL was just meh. He was just playing himself and could have very easily done the same role for a Fast and Furious movie or whatever other shitty dudebro stuff he does.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Agreed, I don't really understand all the disdain for the movie. To be blunt, I've never liked Green Lantern, I think the power of "has a magic ring that he can create stuff with" is incredibly lame.

I disagree with that. I think the versatility of the rings lends itself to a lot of really great situations. Swords, guns, traps, containment bubbles, when you've got something based off imagination, you've got a lot of room to go.

Well, I personally don't like the power right that much because it means they have to come up with one contrived excuse after another as to why a Green Lantern can't just wish the current problem away. It's the same problem that Superman has really.

I agree that the movie is a lot better than all the hate gives it credit for. I especially don't understand the issue with the suit, I mean, it's pretty much what I would have expected a suit made out of energy to look like. Reynolds isn't even a bad Hal Jordon, he's always been a pretty campy character.

 

[silver wolf009]

I disagree with that. I think the versatility of the rings lends itself to a lot of really great situations. Swords, guns, traps, containment bubbles, when you've got something based off imagination, you've got a lot of room to go.

The most interesting thing they could do with the Green Lantern, in my opinion, is to show this versatility by having a number of Green Lanterns who each use a subset of this power that fits their personality. I'm vaguely aware that they supposedly do this in the comics.

Maybe one is an engineer who uses the ring to create working constructs, the second is a martial artist who uses the ring to augment their attacks, and the third is a bruiser who simply summons walls of force to pummel the enemy into submission. Or something like that.

I know for a fact that in the Batman Beyond series, the new green lantern is Asian, and actually fights while in a meditation pose. I liked how he kept up two to three constructs at a time, and rarely moved unless he absolutely needed to.

Agreed, I don't really understand all the disdain for the movie. To be blunt, I've never liked Green Lantern, I think the power of "has a magic ring that he can create stuff with" is incredibly lame.

I disagree with that. I think the versatility of the rings lends itself to a lot of really great situations. Swords, guns, traps, containment bubbles, when you've got something based off imagination, you've got a lot of room to go.

Well, I personally don't like the power right that much because it means they have to come up with one contrived excuse after another as to why a Green Lantern can't just wish the current problem away. It's the same problem that Superman has really.

I agree that the movie is a lot better than all the hate gives it credit for. I especially don't understand the issue with the suit, I mean, it's pretty much what I would have expected a suit made out of energy to look like. Reynolds isn't even a bad Hal Jordon, he's always been a pretty campy character.

Honestly, I just hope it becomes a franchise, just so we have a chance to see the War of Light on the big screen.

 

[romxxii]

Spoiler

A few days ago I saw Green Lantern in a supermarket for £2 and thought - ah, what the hell? I gave it a miss when it came out for any number of reasons, primarily MovieBob's cry of desperate pain in the guise of a review, and I was intrigued to see quite how bad it was.

I thought it was OK.

I mean, it wasn't brilliant, but it felt like a fairly bog-standard superhero movie with a silly premise - said silly premise being 'superhero with power to make big green objects with the power of his mind'. Basically The Mask. Impossible to take seriously, but within its own parameters, enjoyable.

On my relatively decent but not amazing TV the effects looked pretty good. The characters were cliched but fine, there were some relatively good comic beats, especially the Superman parody when the girlfriend sees through the secret identity the moment he appears.

So - speaking as someone who has never read the comics or felt any particular desire to do so (see above comments regarding the silliness of the premise), I thought it was easily at the same level of competence as Thor, Incredible Hulk, maybe even X-Men.

I assume the reason the fans hated it so much was because it didn't give sufficient respect to the source material. But given that there aren't that many Green Lantern fans anyway, I'm interested to wonder why it failed so badly. The only thing I can assume is that they fucked up the marketing, promising the viewers something they didn't deliver.

My initial take on Green Lantern was, it was a passable, if heavily flawed action comedy that would be a travesty only to those heavily invested in the Green Lantern franchise. Even today, where I mentally file the film under "things that do not deserve a second viewing," I do not have enough shits to give to be angry about the movie.

I put it under the same phenomenon as Iron Man 3: decently constructed as an action movie, but will offend those who are invested in the source material. In my case, I have nothing but love for Warren Ellis' six-issue Extremis storyline, so that was my paint point with the film: they adapted the concept of the Extremis virus poorly, and did not end the film with Tony injecting himself with the virus to literally become Iron Man, giving himself full autonomous control of his suits and all of Stark Tech.

Instead, that stupid film decided to go with the "he's already Iron Man on the inside, guys" message, which kinda violates all sort of canon. I do not identify with the Trevor Slattery haters, who I feel are mostly bandwagonners who haven't read a recent issue involving the Mandarin, and definitely haven't read Extremis. I actually laughed at the reveal, because it means the whole Osama bin Laden schtick was just a prank. It also meant that my dream of Andy Lau playing the real Mandarin was still possible.

 

[Eliwood10]

I personally thought it was on par with the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie. Cheesy, questionable costuming/special effects, and a cliche as hell story.

It was all around decent enough, but the bar for comic book movie adaptions has been set so high over the years, especially after the Dark Knight, and Green Lantern just couldn't reach it. If it had come out twelve years ago exactly as it is, I doubt it would have gotten nearly as much hate.

 

[Tiamattt]

There are plenty of movies that are crappy enough to make me POed, but GL isn't one of them. GL is one of those movies that makes me really wish I was watching something else though since it was a pretty boring movie. Just about everything was completely forgettable, the fight scenes were short and unimpressive, most of the cast was dull, and the main scary villain was a giant dark cloud thing that took care of the smaller yet more interesting bad guy instead of the hero. Overall I would grade it as a D, clearly not a good or even a average movie but not absolutely terrible enough to be worth any sort of fury.

 

[irishda]

A few days ago I saw Green Lantern in a supermarket for £2 and thought - ah, what the hell? I gave it a miss when it came out for any number of reasons, primarily MovieBob's cry of desperate pain in the guise of a review, and I was intrigued to see quite how bad it was.

You have to remember, OP, that this is a movie based on a DC property. Hence Bob's abject hatred of it.

As for me, I thought it was serviceable. There were instances where the power was used to unnecessarily convoluted effect, such as saving the helicopter crash with a giant hot wheels race track for some reason, but it wasn't exactly a Fantastic Four 2 either.

Just never compare it to X-men ever again. Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart > every other actor alive, ESPECIALLY Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.

 

[Eddie the head]

You have to remember, OP, that this is a movie based on a DC property. Hence Bob's abject hatred of it.

I really hate this mentality.