Blake Lively is quite attractive. She's ridiculously good looking. Really, really ridiculously good looking. Oh right, the rest of the movie. I should probably talk about that. What can I say about it besides that it's your standard origin-story super hero movie? Not much, unfortunately. It hits on the same cliches and plot devices that we've become quite familiar with, thanks to all the different origin-story super hero movies that have come out over the last ten years. So let's see what exactly separates "Green Lantern" from the pack:
- Lost a close family member/significant other (Spider Man, Iron Man, Batman, Watchmen, GREEN LANTERN)
- This loss has a profound effect (Spider Man, Iron Man, Batman, Watchmen, GREEN LANTERN)
- Inherits responsibility that comes with super powers (Spider Man, Iron Man, Batman, Thor, X: Men, Watchmen, GREEN LANTERN)
- Finds himself in over his head and wants to bail out (Spider Man, Iron Man, X: Men, Watchmen, GREEN LANTERN)
- Has a realization and changes his mind (Spider Man, Iron Man, X: Men, Watchmen, GREEN LANTERN)
- Saves the day and gets the girl (All of them except Dr. Manhattan)
As you can see, the movie's pretty much your run-of-the-mill origin story, except this time with a ton of green CGI.
All that being said, I enjoyed "Green Lantern" even though it wasn't very cerebral. Was it good? No, but at least I found myself entertained in the way that simple-minded action movies are. And have I mentioned Blake Lively? Yes? Well let me just mention her one more time: Blake Lively. Ok, I'm done.
The movie follows fighter pilot Hal Jordan, whose father (also a fighter pilot) died in a fiery explosion when Hal was a boy, and Hector Hammond, a scientist and eventual antagonist. Jordan is selected to be the next Green Lantern after another Lantern crash-lands and dies on Earth after a giant evil monster bad guy named Parallax escapes imprisonment and fatally injures the Lantern. As Jordan learns about what it means to be a member of the Green Lantern Corps. (Lanterns must be fearless and utilize will power and imagination to fight evil), Hammond becomes infected with something extraterrestrial and begins to develop both psychic and telekinetic abilities. Oh, and Parallax is coming to destroy Earth.
What "Green Lantern" is really about, though, is confronting failure and fear. Jordan is too afraid to admit that he's afraid (and that was an actual line spoke by Ryan Reynolds, pretty much word for word; there was a lot of terrible dialogue) and worries he can't live up to the memory of his father, who he believed was absolutely fearless. Hammond, on the other hand, is rejected by Blake Lively's character and learns that his own father perceives him as a failure, motivating him to becoming villainous. This conflict is also seen through how good and evil fight in the DC universe: Green Lanterns derive their power from will, while forces like Parallax and Hammond harness and embrace power from fear. Lanterns triumph by overcoming fear through will power.
Now, of course, comes the good news and the bad news about the movie. I'll start first with what worked well. Ryan Reynolds, as Hal Jordan, did quite a good job. I'd say his performance carried the movie. The rest of the cast, while not particularly bad, didn't really stand out or impress. Peter Sarsgaard did what he could with the character of Hector Hammond, and Tim Robbins had a nice bit part, but the ensemble didn't match up to Reynolds or his character. Hal Jordan, at least, was a decent character. His motivations and struggles to accept being a Lantern created a plausible, if predictable, character arc. The only problem is that it's not a big arc. All that happens is that he grows up a little, rather than a lot. He starts out as a nice guy who's afraid to fail, not a spiteful jerk who doesn't care if he finds success. Yes, he puts the weight of his father on his shoulders, but it could have been done better.
But Blake Lively as a fighter pilot? Really? The problem with Blake Lively's character of Carol Ferris is that she's just kind of there. Jordan and Ferris had a prior relationship, but it's never explored enough to buy why they seem to both have deep affection for one another. How serious was it? Were they engaged? We know Jordan walked away from the relationship, as he's apt to do in circumstances where he thinks he might fail, and we also learn that Ferris isn't too hurt by this, but we never learn anything about the relationship. The driving force behind an on-screen romance is why two people are attracted to each other and would risk their lives to save each other. We're never given that reason. So the romance feels forced (and obviously inevitable, because the hero always gets the girl), and Lively's character thus doesn't fit smoothly into the narrative.
Then there's the extensive backstory, the overuse of CGI, the lack of a strong villain, and a lack of serious drama. My problem with the backstory of the Green Lantern Corps. is similar to my issue with "Thor" in that it's too fantastical and undermines the human spirit by making us not alone in the universe. By setting the story in a universe where there are thousands of alien species, many of whom are much wiser than and peaceful than humanity, it makes our hero and our world insignificant. Who cares if a world filled with belligerent, violent people is destroyed? But if we're alone, or at least don't deal with entire extra terrestrial civilizations (like how the rebooted Batman movies or the X: Men franchise don't), the actions Hal Jordan takes are more meaningful. I know I'm griping more about the comic book's setting, and maybe this works better on the page rather than on the big screen, but this felt like a fundamental problem to me. Batman tries to save his city of Gotham, Spider Man had New York, and Professor X tries to prevent a human-mutant war. But what is Hal Jordan fighting for? Besides Blake Lively, of course.
So when we meet Parallax, a giant, smoking figure who plans on devouring Earth, the threat he poses is muted. First of all, he picks Earth because the Lantern who gave Jordan his ring died there, and that Lantern happened to be the person who imprisoned Parallax. So he picks Earth not because of humanity's significance, but because a dying Lantern happened to land there instead of another populated world. One of the things Jordan tries to do at one point in the movie is convince the Green Lantern Corps. of the goodness of humanity and how our planet deserves to be saved, but this is trivialized by why Parallax chooses to destroy Earth. And just to emphasize for one last time about how we don't know what exactly Jordan's fighting for, we never even learn what city he lives in.
And Hammond? His motivations aren't understood very well. Why does he want to hurt people? Sure, his father is disappointed in him, and he doesn't get the girl, but his descent into villainy isn't done very well. Then there's the CGI. There's a lot of it. A whole lot. Even Hal Jordan's suit is computer-generated. Remember when super hero movies had guys in actual costumes? Those were the days. And couldn't Hammond's appearance be done with makeup rather than CGI? Or any of the humanoid Lanterns? No? Ok then, CGI porn it is. Some people love that stuff, and I don't mind it if it's done well and not overused. But boy, do a lot of movies today feel like they overuse CGI. I don't know why directors are choosing to just do everything digitally rather than attempt to do it practically (which lends a bit more realness), but I hope they remember how movies like "The Matrix" used CGI a lot more sparingly than some movies today, and how well that added to the final product.
I hope I don't sound like I'm ranting, because I did enjoy the movie. It was entertaining enough and if you accept it for what it is, then hopefully you'll enjoy it too. I'd just like to believe that it's possible to make a good superhero movie, and by good I mean from a critical standpoint. I do hope that they make a sequel, so that they have a chance to improve on all of the things I mentioned (and for more Blake Lively).
Until next time, Orange Hat Guy
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