I walked into the Green Lantern with very little knowledge of the character and the annals of the story. The small bits and pieces I knew were this guy has a ring which allows him to create anything he can imagine. That is a pretty cool concept, and I was excited to see how this was going to work. I got to see Green Lantern a little late, and had already heard some of the bad press on the film. I went in excited, and hoping to prove that press wrong.
In my summer movie reviews one of my ultimate goals is to talk about the fun or unique things that I liked about the film. Maybe make a connection to improv, and the world is a better place. I keep trying to think about topics that I want to highlight or talk about, and I just cannot come up with any. It’s not that the movie was terrible, and I want that time in my life back. It’s just that it didn’t really blow me away or excite me; the movie just seemed to happen.
In my mind, this movie seems really similar to Thor, which I really enjoyed! Maybe that is why this one does not stack up. We go on an adventure to this exciting alien world, but I never feel like I really got to discover the characters there, or the cool things there which would not exist on Earth. I also felt at some point there should have been an epic space battle, while we did get some lanterns fighting in space, I was left wanting more. To me this was like a regular old improv scene with no tag outs or edits to truly explore the world and make it fun.
I did enjoy Ryan Reynolds, he definitely has the physique to play a super hero, and we definitely got to see more of his acting then when he played Deadpool in X-Men. I enjoyed the soft voice he brought to the character; most super heroes have these rough or angry voices while Reynolds seemed to play it more chill, which seemed to really fit the character. My main problem was the writing was not up to par, there were a few moments where I was laughing at the cheesiness of the lines being said. It was like need a love scene, need a conflict with the female character, need an I am hero hear me roar speech, sprinkle that together and we will have movie magic, or not. But the suit they created for him is pretty awesome, and the effects for the character were cool, which did save some of the cheesiness.
The best thing this movie did was let me wanting more. The villain seemed to be a throw away character, as most of his story seemed to be a set up for a sequel. I walked out of the theather thinking about what you could create with a lantern ring, and all of the different places and action it would be great to see Hal Jordan in. We all know this whole thing is the ramp up to a Justice League movie, but I really want to see these characters exist in their own worlds before we see them collide. This movie sets up perfectly for a sequel, and that is what I want. This time let’s bring a little more depth to this awesome world! (2 out of 5 stars)
