I won´t so much review the Green Lantern movie. It has been done to death already. I wouldn´t call it a train wreck in the same category as something like Fantastic Four or Elektra, but it does have a lot of the same shortcomings that almost all Fox superhero movies do. It didn´t have to be this way. GL, in fact, had everything to be a very successful adaptation, and open the way for more DC characters´ adaptations. The character got very popular in comics and animated films in recent years, has a rich mythology and characters, DC was apparently taking more control of its adaptations through DC Entertainment. The adaptation had such talent as director Martin Campbell, who resurrected James Bond twice, and stars Ryan Reynolds and Mark Strong, who do their best with what they´re given. More than comment on the specifics of what didn´t work, I´ll try to understand more what led to the studio ultimately butchering what could have been great.
Ironically, the best answer I could come up with is what holds Hal back for a big chunk of the movie: fear. It feels like the studio had little confidence in the material they had, in spite of how much money they spent on it. They believed more in the FX – and I love Oa, the alien GLs, the much-criticized suit, even Parallax – than in the story and characters. Much like Fox often does, they put pacing above character development and storytelling, which makes it feel like a big chunk of this movie might have ended up in the editing room. All for the cheap trick of making the movie short to get more screenings, one that actually actually almost never pays off with superhero movies. Ask the Spider-Man movies, the Iron Man movies, Chris Nolan´s Batman movies, X2, Thor, the first two Superman movies. On the other hand, ask the FF movies, Elektra or Daredevil,XMOW if the short screentime did them any favors.
Claims are that Secret Origins was largely the “blueprint” for the movie, and If it´s true,a lot of it is missing. Hal has a whole background around his father´s death, which in the comics was a heroic decision, instead of the accident that´s portrayed in the movie. It also plays into his relationship with Carol, for he blames her father for it. It´s a far more compelling and dramatic storyline than in the movie, where the father´s death is a glossed over, generic “character issue” without its proper dramatic context, and as a result the romance between him and Carol comes off bland and generic as well. His complicated relationship with his family, especially his mother, as a result of pursuing the same passion that took his father away, also comes off without any of the weight it has in the comics.
One might say that we didn´t come to see Hal´s dramas, but the cool GL aliens, Oa, an epic battle with Parallax, and all that. I don´t quite agree with that, but I see where it´s coming from. I could even get that the studio went for that line of thinking. And indeed those are the best moments we get from the movie, such as Parallax´s first attack, Hal´s arrival at Oa and training, and so on. Even so, you feel like he didn´t spend nearly enough time there. Kilowog and Tomar-Re are there for, like, a minute each, and we don’t see Hal and Sinestro build the mentorship/friendship they do before he falls to the dark side. One minute he´s trashing Hal, the other he supports him. I won´t make a cost calculation, but they could have saved a lot of that money without using a throwaway villain like Hector is in the movie, who seems to be there for no better reason than being an “appetizer” for the real threat, Parallax. And, in spite of its lack of poignancy, we´re still treated to way too much of Hal and Carol´s boring will they/won´t they.
The biggest disaster is the final showdown between Hal and Parallax, that should have been the moment for the GLs, for Kilowog, for Tomar-Re, to take a stand for Hal, for the unity of the GL, as that hypocrite Sinestro mentioned, and be the cavalry. It ends up making them seem like a bunch of cowardly douchebags. The “we are the Corps” chorus sounded awesome in trailers, but you never really feel like the Corps earn that moment. All because nothing in the movie has the proper build-up.
Something that will remain a mystery is how four writers couldn´t come up with better material than this. I´m not in general a fan of the 1000 monkeys with typewriters – fine, computers - theory, but Spider-Man 2, First Class and X2 were written by a bunch of people, too, with much better results.
Maybe there´s gonna be a director´s cut of GL on DVD that will turn out a considerably better movie. An improved sequel seems like a distant possibility at this point. Campbell says he won´t come back for such sequel, if it ever happens, which seems to suggest he didn´t have the best relationship with the studio. I wouln´t doubt it, given the result. As it stands now, GL may not be as bad as something like Fantastic Four, but it´s almost as much of a wasted opportunity.