Director: Martin Campbell
Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard
Runtime: 1 hours 45 minutes
Genre: Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi / Fantasy
Location watched: Empire Cinema
Synopsis:
Hal Jordan is an irresponsible and cocky pilot who quickly learns the meaning of overcoming his major insecurity of fear when he is chosen by the ring to be a Green Lantern Corps member. When a new enemy called Parallax threatens to destroy the balance of power in the Universe, Hal as earth’s Green Lantern has to step up to the occasion.
Mell Says:
(3/5)
I read and heard from a few candid reviews that this movie was stupid (i.e. sucked). I was prepared to walk into the theater feeling dragged to do a review. All hopes for uninfluenced thoughts were lost.
Funny enough, my guard came down as the movie went by. It didn’t suck. And it wasn’t stupid. I mean, when you think about Iron Man, Transformers and other CGI or Marvel-Comics-turned-movie flicks, their premises are actually stupid. Yet they get away with it because everything else was well-played.
So if there is anything that went wrong… it was the thin script. Much of the movie was spent trying to explain Hal’s internal struggles, but it was lazy with most of the time spent flying around in green. My nephew said that the movie seemed to go by fast. Nevermind it was 2 hours; even he recognized that there was much to be explained. Reynolds was otherwise great for the job – he had the sarcasm, the physique and the heroic narcissism that most heroes are founded upon.
At times the CGI did seem ridiculous. Like it was unfinished or they really had to work on giving it a more “realistic” feel. I laughed seeing the Green Lantern Guardians with their huge heads. I didn’t need to be reminded of how ridiculous it all was.
But make no mistake. I love the comic. I just felt they needed to pack it in a bit more in the movie. Just a few tweaks here and there… like less on the “I’ve got fears”, all the macho hoorah among the Corps and the injected girl troubles… then maybe it would’ve been on par with the likes of Transformers or Iron Man.
(3/5)
All I can say is that I was extremely impressed with this film. Based on the trailers, I was expecting this film to be average, I was wrong. In my opinion, for a superhero film to work, it all narrows down to special effects and the acting. For this movie, they are both great. This film may possibly not have been as good as X-men: First Class or The Dark Knight, but it is an above average superhero movie. Ryan Reynolds is good as always and Mark Strong delivered a strong performance as well. This film is heavy on special effects and they are Breathtaking. The dialogue is nothing new but don’t expect it to be very good given the fact that its a superhero movie. Overall, this movie was very well done and I liked it a whole lot more than I thought it would. Hopefully this may be the first of many Green Lantern movies as this has the potential to become a great movie franchise.