Like any bad movie, Green Lantern has WTF moments. Not a few, but a lot of them, so many that I couldn't enjoy much of the film. I kept wondering how could the writers, director and producers just miss obvious issues?
These are numbered in chronological order.
1. Abin Sur in a spaceship. WTF? UPDATED! (Read below)
To be fair this question doesn't pop into your head in the beginning of the film, but much later when you see Hal and Tomar-re flying around like Peter Pan and Wendy. If Hal and the rest of the Green Lanterns can fly, then why is Abin Sur in a spaceship in the beginning of the film? WTF! Hal has no problem darting from OA to Earth, but the greatest GL needs the help of a ship. WTF!
UPDATED! Penguinlover pointed out that Abin Sur was headed on a rescue mission and the ship was meant as a transport vehicle. Small vehicle, guess the lanterns are picky on who and whom they want to save. WTF! lol
2. Hal Jordan is a bad pilot. WTF?
What! I'm sure most of you are saying, come on, he beat the saber drones, you must be crazy. Am I? Am I? Naw I'm fine. But Hal on the other hand is not a good pilot. When the sabers are chasing Hal and Carol and it looks like they can't win, Hal comes up with a lightbulb of an idea. He'll use Carol as a decoy, coax the saber drones into attacking just Carol and he'll scoot up behind them and shoot them down. The plan sounds pretty good.
So, WTF! Hal executes the plan, comes up behind the sabers and locks in on one of them, and doesn't fire the shot in time. And what about Carol? Well she got shot down by the sabers while Hal went and setup this elaborate and soon to be failed plan.
Wait? There's more? Hal zips past the sabers and ascends toward space. Sounds fine right? WTF! No because as he is headed onward and upward we are told that Hal has broken the rules of engagement. The rules were set at fifty thousand feet and Hal is cheating in the hopes of victory. Hal has to cheat to win, great message. So, once he hits his planes peak, the plane stalls, so do the sabers, he glides after the drones and shoots each one down. Wow, what a pilot!
3. Hal is Maverick. WTF?
The writer of the first twenty minutes of GL should be arrested for plagiarizing Top Gun. Keeping with trend of stealing material from Tom Cruise's tour de force, is the bar scene. Hal is striking out with Carol and goes deep in his bag of tricks to woo his ex-lover. How? By singing her a cheesy song! Come Softly To Me by the Fleetwoods doesn't have the same weight as "you've lost that loving feeling." It might have come off better if Reynolds wasn't serenading a zombie. If they remake weekend at Bernies I'll notify Blake Lively that she can work again.
4. Hal is a dirty fighter. WTF?
So Hal isn't a popular guy around work, by crashing the jet and pointing out that his own companies sabers are useless at certain altitudes everyone at work is expecting to lose their job. When Hal leaves the bar due to a bad case of daddy issues flaring up like hemorrhoids he is jumped by Bob (employee) and his two goons. They go on to beat the snot out of Hal and slap him in the face with school yard taunts of, my daddy is better then your daddy.
Once the Ferris employees are done taking out their anger on fly boy they do the evil thing of walking away. Well Hal isn't gonna put up with those juvenile antics. He coaxes the boys to come out of retirement and finish him off. Is Hal gonna take on all three guys and defend his daddy's honor? NO, he is gonna grab some nails in a coffee tin and throw'em at his enemies. WTF! Yes, Hal is a dirty fighter. Before he can decorate their faces with Stanley tools, his ring comes to life and he punches them with a big giant green fist.
5. The Green Lantern score. WTF?
James Newton Howard who is one of my favorite composers, his musical score was all but invisible in this movie. The only time I heard the score come to life was the flying scene with Tomar-re and Van Wilder. This one piece of music is aptly named, "Were gonna fly now" and is worth a listen. But outside of that two minute piece of magic, there isn't anything worth downloading on limewire for free. WTF!
6. One day of training and you can become a great Green Lantern. WTF!
After Tomar-re shows Hal how to make green slinkies he is abruptly assaulted by the ms. piggy of lanterns, Kilowog. Kilowog begins his training by reciting lines from Armageddon.
Bet you didn't see that coming? Since Kilowog is voiced by Armageddon alum, Michael Clarke Duncan, the writers got the bright idea of stealing most of the lines from the f15 test pilot that trains the drillers to endure Gforce the hamster movie. And why was this done? Did they have to pay homage to Armageddon in a Green Lantern movie? I understand the Armageddon script is like Shakespeare compared to GL, but that was quite silly.
Back to the training, so Kilowog goes into this long speech about how long and tough the training will be, but it only last for one session. And in this one session Hal conquers Kilowog. Since Hal is a noble fellar, he defeats pig man by fighting dirty of course. Kick to the groin and kilowog piggys went crying, wee wee wee all the way home.
There is another five minutes of training with Sinestro, and that is it. Hal knows how to make a brickwall, sword, and subtle Hot Wheel product placements and I guess that is all you need to save the day.
7. Hector Hammond/Carol Ferris encounter. WTF?
A party is being thrown and this is the first time we see Hector, the bad guy meeting Hal and Carol. He runs into each, one at a time. Hal is first up, he has a threeway convo with Hector and Hector's dad, the politician. In this brief awkward moment we realize Hector's dad likes Hal better then his own son. Tim Robbins who plays Hector's dad in the film says, "there are thinkers and doers in this world and hal your a doer." Hector becomes jealous and walks away. Now mind you Carol is not in ear shot of this conversation.
So, whats the WTF moment here? Well, a few mins later Carol bumps into Dr. crazy and he says to her, "My dad is right, I'm not a doer, even though I did examine an alien, but I can't tell anyone about it." Wait? WTF? The "doer" line is said between hector, hal and shawshank, so why would you tell carol that your dad is right about that line, when Carol hadn't even heard shawshank say anything like that? WTF!
8. Best part of the movie is ruined with one line. WTF?
So the next day, after Hal exposed his super powers at the party his buddy Tom shows up. Of course Tom knows it was him and asks to see how everything works. This scene is by far the best. Why? The humor is organic and not forced. Hal has a malfunction with the suit and even slides in a vulgar gesture. And it all works really well.
By far the finest part of this scene is that he shows a weakness to the power that he possesses and he show us how he remedies the issue. Why is this important? Because most of the movie is filled with expository writing and this is one of the few moments we aren't forced to learn a feature about the green lanterns, we see it naturally.
Oh and the one line that ruins this? Tom looks at Hal and says, "don't they always get the girl" they end a great scene with a dumb line. That might be funny if Hal wasn't Sexiest man of the century.
9. Hector and Hal's first fight. WTF!
Before the battle starts the scene is set up by Hector acquiring a new power. He touches Dr. Waller and we see that he can view her memories, we also know that because the writers like expository writing and have Hammonds creepily say, "i can see your memories." Hector is soon subdued and locked in metal braces in the same spot that Abin Sur was being examined. Hector uses his telekinesis to break out and cause all kinds of hell.
Hal comes smashing through a wall and doing green goodness. Him and Hector go at it for a bit.
When this battle concludes Hal is beaten to a pulp, but he makes a last ditch effort by putting his ring on Hectors head. This touch is important because it is the only way that Hal and Parallax can have their first interaction, which is fine. We get some important info, like Parallax is gonna head to Earth and scoop up some fear juice on Earth before heading to Oa for the moneyshot.
So What's the WTF moment here? Well the scene just ends. What? It is by far the most WTF moment in the whole movie. Hal is barely awake he looks over at Hector who is screaming and shrieking because his mind can't handle the long distance call from Parallax and then.....nothing. That's right, we have no clue how these two departed. Did Hal just say, "F this i'm weak right now I better go home?" Did Hector run home to go get tylenol for his migraine? Don't know. So, WTF!
10. Why did Hal go back to Oa? WTF!
So Hal is now privy to the info that Parallax is headed to Earth and Hal heads off to Oa. We all assume he is gonna go ask for some help from the corp, right? Kinda. WTF! Hal heads over to the guardians where Sinestro is showing off his precious yellow ring and Hal says, "help me save my world!" and then makes this moving speech where he says things like, "were worth saving," and "I'm only human." And near the end of the speech he says, "help me save my planet." So whats the WTF moment? When his speech is completed the guardians simply say, no to his pleas. Why? Because the guardians can't risk everything and can't risk any more lives. So Hal's big comeback is...."don't risk anymore lives, let me go fight for my world."
Excuse me? You ask for help, you make a speech and then you ask if you can go help the planet Earth all on your own. Why in the hell did you leave Earth, if at the end of a moving speech you decided that fighting all by yourself was fine? What was the point of asking for help? And what is the point of asking the guardians if you can go get your butt kicked by yellow smog all by yourself? wTF!
11. Final battle with Parallax has a Spiderman 2 moment. WTF!
Green Lantern conquers Parallax with five minutes worth of training and a giant fist. Hal is exhausted from the battle and is hurtling toward the Sun, but wait, he is grabbed by green limbs of energy. He is slowly reeled back in before he can get a sunburn, and if you felt like you seen that before, you have. It's the end of the train scene in Spiderman 2. When Spidey saves everyone in the train and he almost collapses over the train tracks and will surely fall to his death, but a bunch of new yorkers with sticky fingers tug the webhead back in the caboose and all is good. Green Lantern writers are so unoriginal that they have to take the most heart wrenching moment from Spiderman and try to make it their own. WTF!
12. Sinestro putting on the yellow ring. WTF!
Makes no sense! Hal who trained with the ring for a few minutes conquered the baddest of the bad guys with just will alone. He proved that will is more powerful then fear. Sinestro reiterates this point by making a glorious speech at the end where he preaches how wonderful Hal and will are. So, WTF is with Sinestro and the yellow ring? WTF!