Now before I start this, I'm going to make one thing perfectly clear. I don't love this movie or anything like that. I'm not going to sit here and argue that Green Lantern is one of the greatest comic book movies of all time. Cause its not, it's very flawed. But I'm here to argue that its really not as bad (at least in my opinion) as most people think. So in honor of the recent announcement of the reboot let me explain to you why I find this film to be good.
Why I like Green Lantern (2011)
1: Ryan Reynolds
I see so many people on this site argue that "Ryan Reynolds ruins comic book movies", and at least from my perspective, I don't believe that to be true. Yes, Ryan Reynolds has been in a lot of bad comic book movies, but the guy is a good actor (I'll always used Buried as a testament to that). Especially considering in most of these cases (R.I.P.D being the exception) not only was Ryan Reynolds good in the comic book movie he apparently "ruined", he also was the best part in the film. I believe that rings (ha Rings...get it?) true here. Ryan may not have been amazing in this film but for what the script has him doing? He did the best he can. He gave the character I would argue was very bland in the original comic and gave him a lot of personality in this film. He emotes well and while his chemistry with Blake Lively isn't the greatest (funny that they got married later huh?) its passable and certainly isn't as bad as say Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portmans chemistry in both of the Thor movies. Plus there is just that natural Ryan Reynolds likability, I liked him in the film, enjoyed his struggle, was happy he got out of it and was looking foward to more adventures with this iteration of the character. Sadly for me thats not happening.
2: The CGI isn't THAT bad
Now why would I say it has bad CGI if I like the movie? Well, that's cause it does, I agree with people to a point with this complaint. Not everything in the film looks that great, most of the alien creatures look pretty bad, the only exception being kilowog. And the Green Lantern suit could look a bit better, however I'm here to argue on behalf of the constructs. I've seen people say "Aww they look so bad, they look like PS2 graphics". I don't agree with this, I honestly don't get the people who are complaining that the constructs look really bad, they keep saying how they don't look like they are really there. Well, they are made of light, I wouldn't expect them to look like they are really there, for how good cgi tech was at the time I think they did the best they could with how the light constructs look. They look like objects made out of light like they are supposed too. Also I would argue that the cgi backgrounds look fantastic . I really believed they were on another planet when we were on OA, and not only do they look nice, but they are very imaginative and im a little sad we arn't going to see this version of OA again.
3: It has some good action (especially the climax)
This may be something I'm alone on, but I really enjoyed the majourity of the action in this movie. For a director who doesn't do a lot of action movies I found it all to be well shot, paced, and it had some bad ass moments in them. The main action scene im talking about is the climax. Hal is a major bad ass in this scene to me, how he recites the oath. And how he uses his constructs, for example him flipping the gas truck and shooting it to blow up in parallaxs face.
Really I just found the entirety of the action to be very well done. I always felt like something was at stake during the fights and nothing really screamed a bad action scene to me. Okay yes the race car bit was stupid but I expect a bit of stupid from a movie with this kind of premise. Would I have liked a bit more action? Oh definitely, but I will say that I was very happy with all of the action that we got in the film. Although I will bet the action in upcoming Green Lantern films will be even better.
4: The Score
Wow, I'm talking about movie scores again, go figure. But in all seriousness while the Green Lantern score may not be one of my favorites, and while none of the tracks would make it in my top 10. I do feel that it does what a score is supposed to do very well, convey the right emotions you are supposed to feel as you are watching, I feel it does very well in terms of having some really good dramatic stuff for example the track known as "Hal Returns - Parallax" (sadly some of the best tracks I can't show due to them not being on youtube, if you can find the complete score please do so). It also has some tracks with some sense of wonderment and amazement, which is what you would expect from a Green Lantern movie. The track that does this the best is "We're going to fly now" and no I don't mean Hal flying to a rocky training montage.
I would also say the score is very good at having fitting music for the action scenes, very tense music playing, once again I'm using the climax as an example of this, one of my favorite tracks in the film is known as "Hal Battles Parallax", a very fun action tune that fits the scene very well and in the film definitly made Hal look like even more of a bad ass.
Really the only way you can know whether or not you can agree with me on the score is if you hear it for yourself. So I hope you can find the complete score of the film somewhere (if you want to know where to find it send me a message and I can help) and enjoy it. Lets hope we get a good score for the reboot too. Here's praying Murray Gold gets the job.
5: It reminds me of a more simpler time for comic book movies, and has a few twists on the tropes.
Now i'll gladly admit this is a bit of a superficial reason for liking this movie. I can see why this would turn some people off, but honestly this film reminds me a lot of movies like Spider-Man from 2002 or even the original Xmen. Having the villain be his biggest adversary despite it being the first film, having a pretty goofy tone, its even shot similar to movies from that time period. And it really gets me thinking, what if this movie was released in 2001 or 2002, would it have been received as badly as it was? I personally don't think so, sure it wouldn't have been seen as a masterpiece or anything like that but I seriously doubt it would have been called "the death of the comic book movie" like it was when it did originally come out. People would probably just remember it as either good or okay. Nothing special. When I'm watching the film it feels like the film makers were trying to go for that feel, go back to those older types of comic book movies, back when a movie can be fun instead of being adult and dark like The Dark Knight made things, sure it didn't do it well, but I at least have some respect for them trying to go back to that time. Plus, it does put some of the classic superhero tropes on its head. Mainly the girlfriend not knowing the heroes secret identity, I love what they did here. I was getting so sick of the comic book movies where the girlfriend doesn't find out until the hero just reveals to them "Hey i'm the hero". Since the 2 characters have known each other for years it makes sense that carol would recognize Hal once she got a good look at him, I wish more comic book movies would do this, and I got to give this film props for doing it at all as opposed to the girlfriend finding out in the climax by accident or not finding out at all.
Well there you go people, my reasons for liking the film, Do you agree with my reasons? Did my list impact your way of thinking at all? Or do I just sound like a crazy person. You be the judge. But in all seriousness I thank you for reading and hope you enjoy what you read.