The night before Phil texted me with the following:
Phil: We still on for GL tomorrow?
Me: Yeah, what time do you want to meet up?
Phil: Noon.
Needless to say the next day, once 2 pm rolled around, the afternoon viewing was in doubt. Around 3 pm, I got a call from Phil.
Phil: Sorry man. I had to catch up on sleep. (editors note: Phil is an artist. They keep weird hours, drawing whenever the fates permit. He sometimes goes days without sleep.)
Me: No worries. We'll catch it another time. Besides, I've already seen it.
Phil: Yeah, I read some of the reviews and they were all really negative. I figured sleep was more important.
And that ladies and gentleman, is all you need to know. Sleep was more important.
Let me start off by saying that I'm not going to be one of the many people who completely bash this movie. It wasn't a bad movie at all. It just wasn't that good either. It just was. Let's go ahead and get the cons out of the way first.
The movie was way too quick. Jumping from one scene to the next. I saw more of Dr. Manhattans penis in Watchmen (great, now I've got that in my head, got to stop writing so impulsively) then I did Hal Jordan (Reynolds) training on Oa and getting to know his fellow Corps members. You know those scenes from the trailer (and more on the trailers in a sec) with Kilowog and Tomar-Re that got you so pumped up? Well that's pretty much all you saw of them in the movie.
The guardians are only around for a split second and the most well acted character in the whole movie, Sinestro (played incredibly by Mark Strong) is there just long enough to make his presence known. Any fan knows what path Sinestro eventually goes down, (slight spoiler here) and this is foreshadowed beautifully in the quick scene after the credits roll, but I was more emotionally invested in Sinestro in the 10 minutes I saw him on screen than I was with the two bad guys (Parallax and Hector Hammond).
Maybe that was the biggest problem to me. Too much blabbing between Hal and Carol (Blake Lively) and Hal and his comic relief buddy who's name I didn't bother to memorize, and not enough ring slingin''. Which brings me to the script which was cookie cutter at best. Playing it safe and not really taking any chances. It was your basic superhero template (guy becomes superhero, guy loves girl, guy conflicted, guy saves girl and world, the end) with not enough character development.
These are fantastic characters. Hal, Carol (who ends up getting her own ring in the comics), Sinestro, Kilowog, Tomar-Re, the Guardians. They each deserved more time on screen. Too often movies are made short so that more viewings can be squeezed in theaters so that more money can be made. A lot of times this comes at the expense of trying to tell a good story. The Dark Knight was 2 hours and 32 minutes long. You think Christopher Nolan gave a damn about keeping it short. He told the story that had to be told. A billion dollars later and we're all salivating for The Dark Knight Rises (mmmmmm..... Dark Knight Rises).
I put any problems with the movie on Warner Bros. and not DC Comics (who is owned by Warner Bros.) DC Comics knows what they have with Green Lantern. Bottom line is, in the comic book world, Green Lantern has risen into the Mount Rushmore of DC's big three (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman). Green Lantern the comic is just as good if not better than anything that's being done by Bats, Supes or WW. They've got all the material in the world to provide an incredible movie. Hell, the two animated movies have been great. How do you make a great cartoon and not an epic movie? Not sure if a new director is needed here because, well, you can only work with the script that you've got. New writers maybe? Maybe let Geoff Johns (Green Lantern comic writer) get more involved?
As previously mentioned, the trailer....well...it was misleading. The first trailer stunk. So much so that people were really worried, but WB had a great excuse. All the CGI wasn't complete so they couldn't show anything. Then the Wonder Con footage is released and all of a sudden, everyone is pumped. But the new trailers were misleading. All the cool stuff, Tomar-Re, Kilowog, what you saw in the trailers was pretty much all you got in the movie.
As you can see, I'm not really saying the movie was bad. It wasn't. I just wanted more. More guardians. More of the Corp. More Sinestro. More emotion. There's nothing here that can't be fixed and perfected if a sequel is picked up. And I hope it is because I think everyone would love to see Mark Strong get to really sink his teeth into Sinestro once he's consumed by the "yellow element".
One last gripe. I didn't dig the score. The was nothing moving about it. I can't even remember how it went and hum it in my head. After X-Men: First Class (which was awesome) I ran home and downloaded the song "Magneto" from the score off of itunes because I couldn't get it out of my head. Not the case with the GL score, which is crazy when you consider who did the score, Mr. James Newton Howard.
Now to what I liked about the film.
Ryan Reynolds overall as the Green Lantern. He was a good choice. Yes he's the same person in every movie, but the ladies like him and he's in shape and funny. What more could you want for Hal Jordan? The script held him back, but I liked what I saw, whether he was suited up or not.
The suit itself. Yes it strayed away from the comic book version, but other than Spider-Man and Thor, have you ever seen a comic book movie where the suits/costumes look just like they do in the comic? The suit looked alien, just the way it's supposed to.
Sinestro. He rocked. May there be tons of him in the sequel.
Oa and the Green Lantern Corps. So visually appealing for the 30 seconds I saw them. If there is a sequel, here's hoping they play a bigger part and that we get to meet more of the Corps and actually hear them talk.
The ring itself. Very cool. I want one.
Overall, I give the movie 6 power rings out of ten. It's got potential. May the force be with those involved with the sequel.
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