So far, 2011 has been a good year for comic book movies, with Thor and X-Men: First Class earning high critical praise. While we still have Captain America: The First Avenger to look forward to later this summer, many questions were raised with DC's lone submission to the summer movie season, Green Lantern. One of DC's most beloved characters, Green Lantern carries an engaging mythology and unique story. It also marks the first major DC character outside of Batman and Superman to get his own film, leading to speculation that DC was looking to build a Justice League franchise, similar to Marvel's cinematic universe. Comic fans started to wonder, could Green Lantern be the next Iron Man or The Dark Knight, a significant piece of cinema that raises the bar for the genre and leads to more DC characters getting their own starring vehicles?
In a word, no.
In a few more, this movie fails on many levels, but it is not without its fleeting moments of fun.
Ryan Reynolds owns the film as Hal Jordan. After watching this, I can honestly say that he was the best choice for the role, and that he was genuinely engaging and fun to watch. He's given little to work with, however, with the sometimes-competent Blake Lively to share the screen with. There is little chemistry between the two save for a few moments, and those moments are brief.
Peter Sarsgaard gives an erratic performance as Hector Hammond. Hammond never truly feels like a threat; he's more of a crazed ex-boyfriend that Hal has to deal with time to time before he meets his fate. The "true" villain of the film, however, is Parallex, albeit a different one then we are used to. Instead of being a parasitic force that infects its victims and encourages their evil indulgences, this Parallex is a cloud-shaped soul vacuum. Simply put, he looks messy, is treated as an afterthought, and is altogether not very threatening. This is a shame, as the film manages to fail on three villains. No, that wasn't a typo: the biggest shame in Green Lantern is the treatment of Sinestro.
Make no mistake, I loved Mark Strong as Sinestro, but the script gives him nothing to do besides make speeches and have one training scene with Hal. Sinestro is a vital character to the Green Lantern mythos, and he should've been showcased in this movie, building a friendship with Hal Jordan, helping him defeat Parallex, and making the audience care about him to make his later betrayal hurt even more. Instead, he completely devoted to the Corps, asks the Guardians' permission to wield a yellow ring, and has maybe a fleeting moment or two being friends with Hal before he is done with the movie. At first, I was fine with this, figuring that they were saving that particular story arc for the sequel (which I doubt will come). However, if you stay after the credits, you will see them toss all that out of the window for a meaningless scene that leaves hardcore fans (like yours truely) feeling cheated.
Let's talk about what the film does right. As previously mentioned, Ryan Reynolds is enjoyable in his role, and his scenes are legitimately fun to watch. The greatest part of the film is undoubtedly the sequence on Oa. Oa and its inhabitants (notably Tomar Re and Kilowog) are a joy to behold, a great part of the movie that is unfortunately cut short. A good comparison to this would be Thor's Asgard. Asgard was an intriguing realm that had it's own style and importance to the story. It also had the humor of Thor on Earth to balance out its heavy drama. Instead of taking a similar route, Green Lantern is overwhelmingly dramatic with nothing to really balance it out. While Oa is fantastic, it needed more screen time to make this feel like a Green Lantern movie that average moviegoers could get swept away in.
As far as the special effects and 3D go, they're okay. Just okay. Nothing that you'll really lose yourself in, just adequate for the movie. It doesn't really make much of a difference until you realized that the budget for this movie was $300 million.
In the end, the movie is not altogether terrible, but leaves one feeling as if it was a giant missed opportunity. A sequel is heavily set up, but we'll have to wait if the film can make a profit on its $300 million budget.