Posts tagged Ryan Reynolds
If I told you that there was a film about a super hero whose power was a glowing piece of bling and whose sworn duty was to protect the universe from a sentient cloud of fear-induced space diarrhea, you might think that movie would be pretty awful. But Green Lantern shines through despite its relatively low selling points. For a movie about a hero that only die-hard fans really care about, I expect this one to go over pretty well.
Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is not the most dynamic character in history. He’s your cookie-cutter skilled-military-guy-with-a-shattered-past-and-his-hands-on-some-sweet-new-tricks. (Check the archives; I think that’s my record for most words connected by a hyphen.) At any rate, Jordan is not the most compelling story. There’s no real redemption and he’s not quite the same level of snarky as Tony Stark. But Reynolds, who I’ve always liked, does an admirable job of making us care about him. From the film’s triumphant opening dogfight against the military’s new AI super jets to the intense training on the Green Lantern Corps’ homeworld of Oa (yes, non-nerds, there is an entire Corps of Green Lanterns), we get to see Hal trade clever enough dialogue and do interesting enough things. But the film misses out on chances to shine.
Why is the idea of humans being replaced by machines, although clichéd, not explored? Why does the training sequence on Oa only last about ten minutes, long enough for one flying sequence and a few quick skirmishes between Lanterns? And why did we throw away Hector Hammond’s (Peter Sarsgaard, who I wish we’d seen do more) potential to be anything other than a bridge from training to fighting space-diarrhea? Ok, let me clarify this now: The central villain, Parallax (holding back an ex-lax joke), is a being that absorbs and sustains itself on fear. You’d think they’d have taken some of the CG budget away from changing Reynolds’ eye color and projecting a suit onto him and made their villain look a little less like… alright, I’m done with low-brow comedy. Does anyone wonder why a villain whose sole power is to devour you once you’re afraid of him is actually scary? It’s like a defeated paradox… he can only eat you if you’re scared and you really shouldn’t be scared if you know that.
Let me spend the last paragraph of this review stitching together all the pieces I just tore apart. Green Lantern is solid. Not great, but solid. The idea of a guy who can create anything he can see in his mind and sustain it with sheer will power is pretty sweet. For those of us who knock GL for not really having a super-power, let me just throw this out there: what is Harry Potter without a wand? Not much. Why do we love the world of Harry Potter? Because it’s fantastic enough to dare us to dream and separated from us by barely anything at all. Given the choice right now, I’d love to carry a Green Lantern ring. There are a lot of moments where we are just in awe of the creativity on display visually in the film, and the action is top-notch. Fans of the series will also get a little reward if they stick around long enough into the credits (don’t bother staying all the way to the end though).
Overall, for shining some creative light on an otherwise bland plot, I give Green Lantern a 7 out of 10
