Green Lantern: Slightly Enjoyable, Enormously Dumb.
Friday, June 17, 2011 at 8:00AM 
Imagine that you had the power to will anything into existence. Let your imagination run wild. What would it be?
Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is given this infinite gift in the new superhero flick Green Lantern. This power emanates from a ring which is charged by the title object which is given to--- Stop. Stop. You don't need this exposition. Should you choose to see the picture, the complicated history of the lantern will all be explained to you in a lengthy prologue. Once Hal Jordan has entered his own movie, this lengthy prologue will be explained to him again since he wasn't there for it. He in turn will tell this crazy-ass story to his only two friends since they weren't there when he heard it. (If at any point, nature should call, feel free to answer. They'll repeat it for you.)
So what does Hal do with this incredibly infinite gift? He creates fists, fighter jets, race tracks, swords, shields... the basic playthings of little boys. Hal Jordan isn't exactly gifted in the imagination department...
Read the full review at Towleroad.
P.S. Honestly, I could have spilled 1000 more words. There is so much worth mocking. I didn't even space for The Watchers, or Mark Strong as Sinestro or how ridiculously overplayed and schematic the "daddy issues" were. And yet... I can't say it was painful to sit through exactly but for its just mystifyingly silliness... and I love the Green Lantern (one of my favs as a kid). As Katey said to me in the screening "Why did they do that to Angela Bassett's hair?" Oh, the unsolvable mysteries of Sector 2814!
Reader Comments (10)
I never paid even an ounce of attention to this film, and the moment I saw the trailer for the first time a couple of days ago I knew it would SUCK!
It's not a GREAT movie, and there are some clear scripting issues, they should have just rewritten the thing when Geoff Johns jumped aboard as a producer...but..is it bad that I thought this was better than Thor? Less all over the board motivations for characters, less cheap looking, better lead actor, better romance, and no Kat Dennings...all wins in my book.
I KNOW it's not fair to judge it this way, but geesh. SOOO much money spent for this?! A superhero property with limited name recognition outside of comic book land?
Limited? Maybe, but there's MUCH more obscure comic book figures. Iron Man was at roughly the same level of cultural appreciation before his movie. Be glad there isn't a movie about The Awesome Slapstick.
My dad has chosen this as part of our Father's Day afternoon. Guess I'll just have to pound back a few mimosas at brunch.
It's official. I'm the only person on God's Green Earth who really liked Green Lantern.
Just came from seeing it. Some of the action sequences were good and some of the stuff with Hector Hammond - pre-head bloating - was compelling but the rest was pretty useless. It's not bad enough to be considered a disaster but it's so paint-by-numbers and underdeveloped that it can't be called a success. Ultimately, it's a very middle of the road film. You see it, shrug and then forget about it an hour later.
My thought about this movie: “I like it, like it” *Rihanna singing*
Ryan had more sexual chemistry with Mark Strong's Sinestro than Blake Lively's character (I never cared to remember her character's name).
I wound up enjoying the movie enough to get through it, but had hoped it would be terrible enough to make catty comments throughout, except for every 10 minutes or so (it's a surprisingly short movie too).
As panned as this movie was, I was expecting a cinematic disaster. Instead, I got a movie that delivered as advertised. This was at least as good as "Thor" in this genre. I had a pretty good time watching it.