Green Lantern Review

Review By Drew Sandoval

"Green Lantern" feels like an exercise.  It seems to have all the right pieces; an interesting cast, a big-entertainment director, and a character who has endured 70 years of comic book storytelling.  Even with everything going for it, the film is a constant let down, as if everyone who made this movie just did their day's work and went home.  No one tries to push the envelope, and really deliver something entertaining. 

I've got a feeling most people have a general idea what the movie is about from the trailer, and if not, don't worry because the story is just a hodgepodge of the plots of better movies.  Ryan Reynolds plays Hal Jordan, a hot shot jet pilot with family issues (he watched his hot shot pilot father die on the runway, and now Hal can't quite seem to overcome that fear of death).  A dying space alien, part of an intergalactic peacekeeping force (The "Green Lanterns"), crash lands on Earth and chooses our hero to replace him on the police force.  With the membership comes a magical ring that allows Hal to create anything he can see in his mind.  It isn't as exciting as it sounds.

Ryan Reynolds is fairly slack in this role.  I was actually looking forward to Reynolds as an out-and-out superhero (he was cool in Blade 3), but he feels subdued here.  The qualities I most respond to are his sarcasm, meanness, and his mischievous, almost depraved, sex appeal.  I thought he was great in "Waiting" and some of his other lowball comedies.  Here he tries to be All-American hero, and playing it straight isn't one of his strengths.  He is doing Ryan Reynolds-lite.

The rest of the cast is similarly apathetic.  Blake Lively and Tim Robbins aren't given much to do.  Voice work by Geoffrey Rush and Michael Clarke Duncan is subpar.  Peter Sarsgard, as a side villain whose brain expands and forces his skull into the shape of a deformed watermelon, is almost embarrassing to watch.  Mark Strong, as a strict and stern commander of Ryan Reynolds new Green Lantern team, helps bring gravity to the situation, but it doesn't really help.

Also of note are the curiously uninvolving action scenes.  The director, Martin Campbell, has deliver some of the best action cinema of the last twenty years, with GoldenEye, Mark of Zorro, and Casino Royale.  The primary difference between those near-classic films and this one, is this film has a necessary reliance on CGI.  I don't particularly think CGI is Campbell's strong suit.  For the few moments when we are watching actual physical effects (a car getting flipped down a city street, or a top-secret lab being ripped apart), the film starts to perk up, but then we return to the flying and Green Lantern creations, and the film gets slows for unimpressive visuals and simple action setups.

On top of everything else, the writing itself isn't really up to snuff.  I can see how this property could be something impressive and epic, it seems to be rich with concepts of fear and willpower, a hinted-at backstory of betrayals and victories, and a heroes journey as he overcomes the demons inside him.  However the writing doesn't sufficiently develop any of this, and instead seems content to shoot us from cliched scene to cliched scene.

Anyways, this film is a big disappointment.  It feels as if everyone in it's making was coasting on autopilot, not quite finding the effort to make this film something really special and entertaining.

Check out Green Lantern preview after the jump