Rating: PG-13
Starring:
Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan / Green Lantern
Blake Lively as Carol Ferris
Peter Sarsgaard as Hector Hammond
Mark Strong as Sinestro
Temuera Morrison as Abin Sur
Jenna Craig as Carol Ferris at 11
Jon Tenney as Martin Jordan
Mike Doyle as Jack Jordan
Gattlin Griffith as Young Hal
Nick Jandl as Jim Jordan
Dylan James as Jason Jordan
Leanne Cochran as Janice Jordan
Geoffrey Rush as the voice of Tomar-Re
Michael Clarke Duncan as the voice of Kilowog
Directed by Martin Campbell
Special Features:
Theatrical Feature & Extended Cut Films
Maximum Movie Mode with PiP
Ryan Reynolds Becomes Green Lantern
Universe According to Green Lantern
WBA Green Lantern Animated Series Promotion
Digital Enhanced new Justice League book #1
Deleted Scenes
Other Info:
Widescreen (2.40:1)
DTS-HD MA Sound
Spanish and French Languages
Spanish and French Subtitles
Running Time: 114 Minutes (Theatrical), 123 Minutes (Extended)
The Details:
The following is the official description of the film:
“In a universe as vast as it is mysterious, an elite force of protectors for peace and justice has existed for centuries. They are the Green Lantern Corps. When a new enemy called Parallax threatens to destroy the Universe, their fate and the fate of Earth lie in the hands of the Corps’ newest recruit, the first human ever selected: Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds). Bringing the popular superhero to the big screen for the first time, ‘Green Lantern’ also stars Blake Lively (‘Gossip Girl’), Peter Sarsgaard (‘Orphan’), Mark Strong (‘Sherlock Holmes’), Academy Award® nominee Angela Bassett and Academy Award® winner Tim Robbins.”
“Green Lantern” is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action.
The Movie:
I have to admit that I’m more of a Marvel man than a DC man. I’m familiar with Green Lantern, but I’ve never collected the comics. Still, I went into this film with an open mind. I’m a big fan of Martin Campbell (who did “GoldenEye,” “Casino Royale,” and “The Mask of Zorro”) and I figured that if anyone could do the material justice, it was Campbell. Unfortunately, while parts of “Green Lantern” were quite strong, the movie had a lot of missteps in other areas.
The movie starts out really well. We’re treated to an amazing, action-packed battle between Abin Sur and Parallax. Temuera Morrison (who played Jango Fett in “Star Wars”) is great as Abin Sur. From his fight moves to his makeup, he’s a cool character. And the cloud-like Parallax is also pretty impressive (though disturbingly similar to the “Fantastic Four” movie’s Galactus). As far as the opening scenes went, it was great for immersing the audience in this adventure.
We are then introduced to Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan. I have to give credit Reynolds – he sells the character. He’s funny, likable, and basically holds the movie together. He takes what could otherwise be a ridiculous character in the wrong hands and sells it. I, personally, was more intrigued by the scenes set in space, but Reynolds still managed to make the Earth-bound scenes he was in fun as well.
Reynolds has some good chemistry with Blake Lively as Carol Ferris. She’s spirited, she’s the voice of reason for Jordan, and she’s fun to look at, too. As Lively delivers cheesy speeches about fear and will, you buy it from her.
Once Hal gains his powers and goes to the Lantern’s home planet of Oa to begin training, things get particularly interesting. We are treated to an impressive array of aliens that would do “Star Wars” proud. We meet Tomar-Re who is voiced by Geoffrey Rush and Kilowog voiced by Michael Clarke Duncan. The two offer some laughs as they indoctrinate Hal into his new role. Hal also meets Mark Strong as Sinestro. I have to give credit to Strong here. On the surface this is an absurd character – he’s pink, he has a stupid haircut and moustache, he has Spock ears, and he’s named “Sinestro.” What hero is named “Sinestro”? His very name tells you that you shouldn’t trust him! Yet Mark Strong makes him cool. From his silky smooth voice to his impassioned speeches to his brutal fight scenes, he’s ultimately an interesting character. (And be sure to stay through the credits to see a cool bonus scene featuring him.)
Once Hal returns to Earth after having been indoctrinated, that’s when “Green Lantern” starts to fall apart.
First of all, despite the fact that Ryan Reynolds does a good job of portraying Jordan, he’s not a sympathetic character. He’s a fighter pilot, he’s the sexiest man alive, he has Blake Lively in love with him, and he has super powers. So when he whines that he can’t commit to a woman, you want to slap him. You’ve got Blake Lively fawning over you, you idiot! He whines that he is too irresponsible to save the Earth. You’ve got superpowers and you can fly through space, moron! He’s like the rich kid or the movie star or the high school jock that has every advantage in life, but they’re too irresponsible to realize it. It makes him completely unsympathetic. The Marvel characters like Peter Parker or Steve Rogers are the every-man weaklings who are given powers and make the most of it. Hal Jordan is the man who has everything, is given powers, and runs away from it. His character was simply not handled well.
Another character not handled well was Peter Sarsgaard as Hector Hammond. While the jock is the hero, the nerd is the villain. They start out by making him the stereotypical nerd by having him play chess, be a science geek, and having a receding hairline and bad posture. They even have him pining for the cheerleader…er…Blake Lively. Once he is infected, he turns into an even more grotesque monster. This is one of the other big missteps of the film – he looks like the Elephant Man. The audience literally laughed when he appeared on the screen. To make matters worse, they even put him in a mechanical wheelchair in the big finale. So by the end, you have an evil Elephant Man / Stephen Hawking villain battling the jock / Sexiest Man Alive over the Cheerleader. It’s like every terrible high school stereotype thrown onto the screen. Then there’s also the fact that they were childhood acquaintances which seems both unlikely and forced. It’s almost like they took the “Spider-Man” script and slightly tinkered with it to come up with “Green Lantern,” but the results are dramatically different.
Another problem the movie has is that it’s almost TOO faithful to the original comic. For example, Green Lantern has a mask. You don’t even realize how pathetic that is until, in the middle of a big action scene, Jordan runs away, gets into his Lantern costume, then appears in front of the crowd again…and nobody recognizes him. As he’s standing there in front of everyone and everybody is acting like, “Who’s that?”, it suddenly hits you how pathetically ineffective the mask is at concealing his identity. Fortunately they poke fun at the whole mask thing in a later scene and it is quite funny, but by that point their credibility has already been damaged. Another trademark of Green Lantern is the wild objects he makes with his ring. Some are effective like a sword, a wall, etc. But then at another point he makes an enormous Hot Wheels track to save someone. It sounds great on paper but is actually pretty stupid looking on screen. The same goes for some other constructs he makes in the big finale. Then there’s the fact that the green energy is actually willpower. The idea that a human emotion is a super-powerful energy may work in comics, but it’s a bit hard to buy in a movie.
“Green Lantern” also takes a major misstep with the alien race that supervises the Lantern Corps. When they face Parallax, who utilizes fear to battle their power of will, what do they do? They get the bright idea to use fear to fight fear. Excuse me? You’ve been using the power of will to save the universe since the beginning of time, then you have one little crisis and you quickly abandon everything your organization was founded on. So much for willpower. They are also the self-appointed guardians of the universe, yet when Earth is threatened by their greatest enemy, what do they do? They leave Hal Jordan to fight Parallax completely on his own despite the fact that they have thousands of other Green Lanterns who seem to regularly gather for pep rallies led by Sinestro. If these are the guardians of the galaxy, I think I’d rather rely on Superman and Batman. I’d even take Aquaman.
The movie has other problems, too. It almost feels like some scenes were deleted. For example, Hector is terrorizing some people and Hal flies out of nowhere and starts battling him. There’s no explanation for how he found him or that he was even looking for him in the first place. It’s like the attitude was, “This is a superhero movie. The hero and villain can fight whenever we want.” I also have to comment on the soundtrack. It was pretty disappointing which is surprising from James Newton Howard. It feels like it came from a TV show.
While “Green Lantern” has a lot of problems, I still think it’s worth checking out. Reign in your expectations and I think you’ll enjoy it more. But Marvel has absolutely nothing to worry about.
The Extras:
The most interesting item among the bonus features is the extended cut of the film. It’s only 9 minutes longer, but it does fill in some of the gaps in the narrative. Most of the added scenes (if not all of them) are at the beginning of the film where we see a young Hal Jordan chatting with his mother and father. Hal then cuts classes and runs to the airport to watch his father test-pilot a new plane. There he sees young Carol and Hector. So it’s established a lot earlier that the three have a history together. Then, as we see snippets of in the theatrical version, Hal witnesses his father crash and die in a fiery explosion. The movie then flashes forward 13 years and we pick up again with Abin Sur being attacked by Parallax. So the scene doesn’t magically make the movie better, but it does make some of Hal’s backstory clearer.
The next big highlight is the deleted scenes. One rather bizarre deleted scene shows Hector using his mind to pick up his pet hamster in the air while it’s running in its wheel. It was probably a good call deleting this. Another deleted scene shows Hal protecting his young nephew from Parallax as he attacks the city. It’s a noteworthy scene since the nephew is seen once at the beginning of the movie and never revisited again, but Reynolds has this weird whispery voice in the scene that’s pretty creepy. Then there’s a scene between Sinestro and Hal at a Lantern cemetery, another scene with Carol, and some other minor moments. So overall the deleted scenes aren’t all that memorable, but it is interesting to see Reynolds and Mark Strong without their fancy CGI costumes.
This Blu-ray also features “Maximum Movie Mode” where some featurettes, bits of trivia, and interviews pop on the screen as the movie plays. I prefer watching my bonus features separate from the movie, so I’m not a big fan of it. On the bright side, a few of the major featurettes are set up to view outside of this mode. They cover the creation of the alien Lanterns, Hal’s CGI costume, Hector’s grotesque makeup, and other fun stuff. Also included is an entire video featuring Ryan Reynolds becoming Green Lantern. They discuss his casting, performance, character background, and other things. “Universe According to Green Lantern” is a 20 minute video covering the history of the Green Lantern comic books, his story arcs over time, and more. It gets into heavy detail about Hal’s transformation into Parallax, his team-up with Green Arrow, and more. Fans of the comic will enjoy hearing DC’s creators discuss the books. Speaking of the comics, a digital copy of the new “Justice League” comic is included.
Finally, there’s a sneak preview of the new “Green Lantern” animated series that will be on Cartoon Network. The animation takes a little getting used to, but once it gets rocking it appears to be pretty cool. I was amazed that in addition to regular Lantern Corps adventures, they even feature them battling the Red Lanterns (kind of like the Sith vs the Jedi). This short preview actually looks like it’s more exciting than the live action “Green Lantern” movie.
