This review was originally published on ciao.co.uk on 29/07/2011
Another summer at the cinema, another comic book adaptation. Not being much of a fan of comic books, the Green Lantern wasn’t one I’d heard of before now. But given that a number of the comic book adaptations have been pretty good, especially in recent times with the “X-Men” franchise and the updating of the Batman, Superman and Spiderman characters, I figured it couldn’t be all bad. And it wasn’t, but it certainly paled in comparison to what has gone before.
Having been imprisoned by the Green Lanterns many years before, the evil being Parallax has escaped and is aiming to take his revenge. He succeeds in killing the Green Lantern warrior Abin Sur, who first defeated him. Abin Sur crash lands his spacecraft on Earth and sends his special ring out to seek his replacement. The ring finds Hal Jordan, a cocky, over confident test pilot, who certainly seems to have the lack of fear the job demands, but struggles with the physicality of the job.
Hal is taken to the planet Oa, where the Green Lanterns get together and he starts training. Unfortunately, there has never been a human Green Lantern before and he is derided, especially by the Green Lanterns leader, Sinestro. Meanwhile, having infected the scientist who did Abin Sur’s autopsy, Parallax is heading for Earth to destroy it. Hal Jordan either has to convince Sinestro to help, or fight the battle to save Earth himself, whether he’s ready or not.
It’s tough to know where to start with this film, as it was pretty bad in almost every single aspect. The first issue I found was with the story, which wasn’t substantial enough to support the film. The pacing of what is there is horribly off as well, as there is too much time spent looking at the relationship between Hal and Carol and not nearly enough time spent on the Green Lanterns. This means that the threats to Earth that Hal supposedly has to fight off and the training he’ll need to achieve this are skipped over way too quickly. You never get the feeling that the Green Lantern has grown into the character he needs to be before the time comes where he has to be and the ending of the film itself is so blink and you’ll miss it, that it’s barely worth waiting for.
The special effects on the film, usually the best part of any action film, are also seriously lacking here. Many of the alien Green Lanterns look like they’ve either been put in very bad costumes, or drawn on by someone more used to working in cartoons. The Green Lanterns’ arch enemy, Parallax is little more than a swirl and the details that film fans have become used to thanks to the advancement in Computer Graphic Imagery are absent. Some scenes involving Parallax look so badly done I wished this film had been a cartoon, as it would have fitted in better.
The acting performances, never a strong point in action films, weren’t here either. Ryan Reynolds may look decent as a superhero, but that’s about all he does, delivering his lines with all the emotion of the original comic book Green Lantern. Blake Lively as Carol is nice to look at, but there is never any chemistry between the two of them. Tim Robbins, who has put in some excellent performances over the years, is wasted here and seems to be largely going through the motions. For the second time in recent memory, Mark Strong as Sinestro is the stand out, although here, as in “Robin Hood”, he’s not got any real competition. His performance wasn’t markedly excellent by any means, it was just significantly better than anyone else’s here.
The one minor saving grace to the film was some of the script. Admittedly, it slowed down in all the wrong places and was completely wrongly paced, but it did deliver some good lines. Unlike “G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”, which seemed to be trying too hard to get the laughs, the jokes in the script here felt a lot more natural. Some of the moments where Carol and Hal are sniping at each other are snappily written and Hal’s attempts to get the Lantern to charge his ring are quite amusing.
Apart from this minor saving grace, however, this is a poorly put together film. There’s really nothing here to recommend spending money on it. Nothing here is worthy of seeing on a big screen or with an impressive sound system and there’s not really a lot here to even recommend seeing it on a small screen either, but at least then you’ll be satisfied in the knowledge that you’ve not paid anything extra to watch such a poor film.
sohoblack 