Chris Kavan's Movie Review of Green Lantern

Green Lantern Burns Out Quick
Chris Kavan - wrote on 06/27/11

People are always saying how much either a movie is like a video game but in the case of the Green Lantern, it's actually a truth. The whole opening scene, which is CGI, reminded me of a very impressive cut scene in a video game. Unfortunately Green Lantern is a feature-length film, not a video game, and when I get that feeling in the first few minutes, it diminishes my hope.

Green Lantern is not exactly a top-tier super hero to begin with, but this film can't be doing him any justice. For one, while Ryan Reynolds does an admirable job of balancing between insecure fighter pilot and green galactic cop, he's saddled with a rather limp story. I mean, when your main bad guy is... fear... it just doesn't get very exciting.

The cast is pretty much wasted - Blake Lively is kept around as the damsel in distress/eye candy. Mark Strong is a purple pointy-eared Green Lantern leader, Peter Sarsgaard is a sad-sack scientist who is brought in by his Senator father (a silver-haired Tim Robbins) who ends up infected with some fear juice and gets a big head (literally - probably tumor filled) and gets yellow eyes and telekinetic powers to boot.

The best times are short-lived. I wish they would have explored the actual powers of the lanterns more. The best scenes are when Reynolds suddenly pulls a howitzer or Gatling gun out of thin air it's pretty amazing but those instances seem too far and in between. As I said before, what also hurts the film is that the enemy is a writing mass of yellow evil that is apparently fear incarnate and sucks the life out of those who are scared - it makes for a rather obtuse villain and doesn't fit the whole scenario.

The movie also loses points for being a bit too sappy whether it's Reynolds dwelling on the past or making a lame speech about humans to a group of near-immortal beings - I just felt like groaning at some points at how lame it was for a film to be trying to wring some emotion out of those moments.

In the end, Green Lantern wants to be a good super hero movie, but can't overcome its many faults. If you enjoy action, you could do much worse, but as a summer blockbuster it falls pretty flat.