REVIEW: Green Lantern

Dir.: Martin Campbell

With: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively

Poor, poor Ryan Reynolds. I fear that he might join the battalion of the good-looking and at some point promising actors who, by fate or through bad career choices, ended up in a vicious circle of crappy movies and shirtlessness, i.e. the Matthew McConaughey garrison. RR clearly has some acting skills (although none of them were particularly showcased in his mainstream films), he is “normally” handsome and seems to be quite down-to-earth according to his interviews. However, at 34, his highest grossing film to date is still “Van Wilder” and this says something about how unfortunate the past few years have been for him.

One would think that a main role as the eponymous character in “Green Lantern” would change this statistic. However, after watching it I am not so sure anymore. The movie was unbelievably contrived, clichéd, erratic and completely failed to engage with the audience. The story did not flow, I for one could not care less whether the good aliens would win, whether the universe would survive and whether Green Lantern would get the girl. They could have all come over to the dark side for all I cared. There wasn’t enough humour, the aliens were unconvincing and lame and Blake Lively was quite blah.

It would also be interesting to compare this film to “Thor” – they have similar setups, both take place on Earth and on a far away planet, both have heroes with special powers who in turn both have lady friends who are mere mortals and both involve inter-galactic travel. The similarities end here, “Thor” is miles ahead in its plot development, acting standards, humour and general artistry (which makes it sound like no less than a Shakespearean adaptation). Out of the three super-hero films I reviewed recently, including “X-Men”, “Green Lantern” is the worst by far. I do feel bad saying this as it was clearly a huge production with carefully considered casting – Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Robbins, Geoffrey Rush; and I don’t really know who to blame that it went so wrong– the director who completely failed to give originality to the film and hold it in one piece, the actors who seemed confused about what exactly they were supposed to be playing or the producers, who failed to see that their film was totally soulless.

There isn’t much to say really, apart from if you do decide to spend millions on a comic adaptation you might as well try and create something that won’t bore the audiences out of their wits and won’t rely solely on special effects and cheap jesting. Now please watch the trailer and tell me that it doesn't remind you of "The Lord of the Rings".