Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Green Lantern (2011)

Rating: 15%
Now for a while I've heard a lot of things about this movie such as it being "just okay" at best and "Oh my gosh it's as bad as Batman and Robin" at worst. Personally, I didn't completely care because altogether, I wanted this to be bad since my loyalty in the comic world lies more on Marvel than DC. But that didn't stop me from wanting to eventually find out what is it about this film that's good or bad. So let's take a look at what I found.

Plot: millions of years ago, there was these beings called the Guardians who created the Green Lantern Corps which is basically as space police force to protect the galaxy using the green power of will. The main enemy against them was the yellow power of fear. The primary villain of fear was Parallax who was imprisoned by one of the Green Lanterns Abin Sur. But Parallax returned and attacked Abin Sur who escaped and crash-landed on Earth. During his last dying breath, he uses his Green lantern ring to summon someone on earth to take his place before he dies. So the ring summons a test pilot named Hal Jordan making him the new Green Lantern. So he eventually comes to the Green Lantern Corps homeworld of Oa to be trained.

Okay now that we have the plot out of the way, let's get the many plot holes and chessy lines and stuff I want to point out, out of the way. so *WARNING SPOILER* Okay let's start with plot holes: 1)why did Abin Sur make a prison against Parallax where we was capable of escaping if a couple of alien ever found him? I mean if that's the best he can do, he should've hidden him better. Maybe bury him deeper inside the planet or something like that. 2) why doesn't the Guardians tell Sinestro about Parallax right away? They just acted like everything is under control or something like that when things are totally not. 3) Hal discovers his power by using it to punch three guys when in fact we was intending to throw...some sort of garbage or something at them. So how did he use his power if he wasn't even aware of it. and the way he was trying to throw...whatever that was at them, it didn't look like it would help at all byt he way he was throwing it. 4) If the ring had this process where he can instantly learn about stuff like which sector Tomar-Re is guarding, why doesn't the ring to that so that somehow Hal automatically knows how to be just as good of a lantern as all the other Green Lanterns? or at least give him a quick idea at it kinda like Neo learning combat and stuff rather then just training him. Sinestro may still kick his rear, but I would think - based on how I understand the power of these rings according to this movie -  that doing something around that would save time and be a little more helpful for new Green Lanterns. 5) When Hal trapped Parallax with the sun, he used his power to create two planes to pull him away. Now I know that worked, but don't you think coming up with two space ships or something a little more powerful and faster than planes to make sure he's getting out of there alive? 6) What randomly inspired Sinestro to put on the yellow ring? He was all good with Parallax defeated and all that so why did he do it anyway? Now let's move to what's REALLY cheesy about this movie. 1) Kilowag going so far as drill sergeant as saying something even remotely like "This will be the most miserable day of your miserable life" (that's probably not what he said word for word but you get the idea) 2) the hero denies the responsibility at first...like Sam Witwicky, Timmy from Secret of NIHM 2, Moses, really there's a lot of them but let's not get intro too much detail. 3) Now here's the one that was the absolute worst in the movie. Hal refuses to fight Parallax because he's afraid. Now Carol asks him if he's father was ever afraid and he responded by saying that he would fight it if he would, which Carol responds to that by saying "There's a word for that: courage"...do I need to say more? Hal decides to be a hero pretty much by discovering (or may as well have discovered) courage...that's the stupidest thing they could've put in there in order to inspire a hero in a modern movie that's not for FREAKING THREE YEAR OLDS!!!! I mean this is Green Lantern not the Cowardly Lion!!!! In our modern age, whenever there are main villains that have to do with fear (ex: Dementors in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Bats in Batman Begins) they don't talk about fighting fear by being just courageous, they talk about using a power to defeat fear (Expecto Patronum) or become a sort of fear for your enemies (being Batman/creating an antidote to Scarecrow's fear gas) or whatever. So it really is pathetic that they use a line like that as part of introducing this superhero in a live-action film. In fact, wasn't there already a quote for the whole deal about being afraid? That his father always said "It's my job not to be" and that he picked that line up to tell his nephew later on? what was wrong with bringing that part about his dad up to inspire him to go fight? I mean it's not original, but the quote that they went with, makes Optimus Prime saying "from here the fight will be on your own" in Dark of the Moon have more dignity... AND HE'S BASICALLY SAYING THAT THEY'RE ON THEIR OWN AGAINST THE DECEPTICONS WITH THAT!!!!! So really they should've stuck with his dad's quote all the way. 4) Just how Hal mentioned that the ring saw something he didn't see yet which Carol in a very chessy way says that she see it and she always did. 5) simply that Hal managed to draw back Parallax just by saying the oath. Now for what really stupid. 1) In order to even know what the oath was, Hal had to touch the lantern where he seemed to have gotten hypnotized by it where that way he learned the oath and said it. Now it probably wasn't hypnosis, but they way they laid it out, the lantern actually did that in order to tell him what the oath is and even use it to make him say it. And even then, there's the fact that nothing happens after that. They just leave it be until Hal got attacked. 2) Hector looked WAY to much like a Klingon. And I know for a fact that, that is only in the movie.
I mean here on the left is Hector in the comics. and on the right is Hector in the movie...now I may be pretty new to Star Trek in general, but based on how they enlarged his head and even showed his veins on the head, he may not have dark skin, but he looks just a Klingon as Christopher Lloyd was in Search for Spock for all I can tell. 6) Hal having a flashback about his father was really random. *END OF SPOILER* So as far as everything else, the idea is nice. I mean the power to create stuff through will and things like that does sound interesting. But maybe they should've had more on the stuff of Hal in Oa then anything else so that we get a little more into it. So if I want to understand more, then I guess I'll have to check out some of the comics sometime. But based on what little I know already outside of the movie, this is not exactly what some fan were probably expecting.


Acting/Characters:
Ryan Reynolds/Hal Jordan a.k.a. Green Lantern: Now again, how I thought of him as a superhero doesn't look good after the whole fear thing. But that aside...he was nice. I mean we have Hal Jordan introduced as this screw-up and pretty much a jerk and stuff, and yet still having his nice side. Actually, they don't really get into the screw-up part per say. I mean he did screw-up earlier which did have to do with him being a jerk, but how he has that rep outside of what happened in that earlier scene we never really have explained. They kind of just say it.  
Blake Lively/Carol Ferris: She was okay, but the only issue about her character is that they really didn't go far in explaining her relationship with Hal. In fact, now that I think about it, a lot of relationships such as hector and is father or Hal with both the senator and Carol's father. I mean they do give you an idea, but I feel like they should've gotten more into it. It's the same with Carol and Hal because you know they have a past, but from the way it's displayed, you want to know more about what is that past? I mean they made it brief enough that I want to know more about them then just that they grew up together and that they had a fling or something.

Music: The music was nice. I personally liked the music for when Hal was flying with Tomar-Re were flying around Oa. It sounded really nice with the electric guitar.


Editing: Editing was mostly okay, but my main issue was the scene where Hal discovered his power. Because when he was fighting those guys he originally planned to take something and throw it at them or something. and we really don't know what it is. Hal already grabbed it before we would even notice. So I'd like to know what it was and if they even had footage to show what it was before Hal snatched it.

And that's my review for Green Lantern. The idea is nice and there were a couple of things that were different in a decent way as far as character development on the hero himself, but there's a whole bunch of plot holes, and stupid stuff and especially things that are just plain cheesy. This movie may be about fighting the yellow enemy of fear, but it still has the yellow enemy of being cheesy. So in the end, the movie is - in one way - about trading one yellow enemy for another.

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