Devin vs Green Lantern

I was always a Marvel fanboy.  There was something about X-Men that spoke to me in a way no other superheroes did.  I always loved the tragic nature of having these powers could destroy your life.  Superman never held any appeal to me.  I only started reading Superman when I knew he was going to die.  I remember the trade paper back of the Death of Superman being passed around my Elementary school like it was porn.  It was THE Superman getting beaten to death.  When he was replaced by the four Supermen I fell in love with the comics.  Each of these Supermen were flawed in their own way and all wanted to be Superman.  When the story arc wrapped up and Superman returned, I stopped reading.  But from that story arc I was introduced to a character that I hadn't seen before, Green Lantern.  He had the ability to create anything using his green ring.  He was a facinating character that intrigued me, but not enough to start reading his comics.  It was right around then that I moved to Sweden and was unable to get comics on a regular basis.

Years pass and I fall out of comics for a while.  It wasn't until I was in college, and moved to California that I tried picking them back up.  I picked up Marvel (with the House of M storyline) and read the Infinite Crisis event from DC.  It introduced a lot of new characters, but there was so much backstory that I couldn't really get into it.  Then came something called the Sinestro Corps War.  I had heard of Sinestro and since it was a Green Lantern story I thought it would be a good time to get back into it.  I read Green Lantern: Rebirth (a prelude story that brought back a previously dead/kind of alive Hal Jordan) and then jumped into Sinestro Corps War.  It was the first time we saw the full line up of the Sinestro Corps that I was hooked.  A splash page featured The Anti-Monitor (who I had been introduced to in Infinite Crisis), Superboy Prime (also from Infinite Crisis, my favorite moment was watching him punch someone's head so heard it literally exploded) and Cyborg Superman (from the Reign of Supermen arc).  My jaw dropped.  I have been hooked on Green Lantern ever since.  I've tried reading Batman, Superman and some other DC stuff, it never hooks me like Green Lantern.  Green Lantern is my favorite DC character.

When I first heard about the movies that were going to arriving this summer I couldn't believe it.  Thor, Green Lantern, X-Men First Class and Captain America all in the same summer.  The only one out of those four that I wasn't worried about was Green Lantern.  While I don't think Ryan Reynolds is a good choice for Hal Jordan, I like him as an actor.  He was able to elevate Wolverine.  Mark Strong as Sinestro is a perfect choice.  The rest of the cast I could go either way on.  But the previews showed me exactly what I wanted, Oa.  I didn't want them to completely disregard the science fiction part of Green Lantern.  He is a space cop and that's what I wanted.

Liking Thor and loving X-Men First Class I guess I was bound to be disappointed somewhere.  Green Lantern isn't a bad movie, it isn't a good movie, it's just a disappointment.  It tries to do too much and fails at almost everything.  Daredevil was a horrible action movie that was elevated from Ben Affleck's protrayal of Matt Murdock.  This is the opposite.  Hal Jordan is a horribly boring character that you never really get to love.  He's portrayed as a womanizing man that's afraid to fall in love with the one woman he actually loves.  Yes, they made him into Tony Stark.  But he's Tony Stark without any of the confidence.  But when Tony Stark gets the Iron Man suit, he kicks ass with it.  When Hal Jordan gets the ring, he doesn't want it.  He pulls off the reluctant hero thing, but it doesn't even seem like it fits with the character.  Blake Lively isn't bad, but isn't given ANYTHING to work with.  She's the Mary Jane of this movie, but given even less backstory.  I didn't get any feeling that the two were supposed to be in love with each other until Hal gives the "remember that time we had sex" memory in the bar.  Then I realized she was supposed to be the love interest.  All she does is yell, get into danger and then get saved.

The Green Lantern Corps does a little bit better.  Kilowag and Tomar-Re are perfect for what they are, but are given so little to do.  Them and Sinestro are the Warriors Three of Green Lantern, but given even less screen time.  Abin-Sur looks cool, but again, nothing about him makes you think he's a great Green Lantern.  We are told that he contained the villain Paralax, but they don't tell you how.  The problem with Paralax (and science fiction/fantasy movies in general) is that if things aren't clearly defined you don't know what you are dealing with.  Paralax is a giant floating pile of dust, how and why is that a threat?  Well it shows Paralax eating creature's souls.  But the amount of time it takes to steal a soul seems to vary depending on when the movie needs it to.  To show it's power it kills off other Green Lanterns like it isn't a problem.  But sometimes it takes it's time.  

Sinestro is done really well but not given enough screen time.  Most of his motivations make sense.  Hector Hammond is completely wasted in this movie.  He doesn't need to be a villain and the only reason he exists is for the fighting to occur on Earth.  The performance is actually kind of fun to watch, but unnecessary.  

One of the things I did enjoy about the movie was the Green Lantern powers.  They did a good job of varying up what gets created by the ring.  It isn't all shields and blasts of energy.  It feels like someone actually tried to be creative with it.  The special effects were cool.  It just feels like nothing is earned in this movie.  It feels like this is what Thor could of been if it sucked.  Green Lantern failed at mixing the space stuff with the Earth stuff and that is where Thor worked.  Thor made an asshole likeable, where as Green Lantern made it's asshole try to convince us that getting a super powered ring makes him a nice guy all of a sudden.  

Similar to: Iron Man, but for the DC crowd. 

Watch Thor instead.  Or X-Men First Class again.

SPOILER TALK:

* The turn for Sinestro at the end of the movie is completely unearned.  There is no reason for him to turn to Fear.  His worry was that they would be unable to stop Paralax, but they do.  So then he tries it out?  It's like they completely left out a scene.

* The "Warriors Three" showing up at the last minute to save Hal?  Really?  So stupid it doesn't even make any sense.

* While I thought the way Paralax got stopped was a cool idea, the setup for that event was so weird I didn't even understand it at first.  Kilowog is able to just create a sun with his ring?  Just...weird.

* The mask still looks stupid.

* The suit looks cool.

* I loved how Hal spoke the oath near the end.  Just a great scene.

* The training montage was the best action sequence.  Seeing creative use of the rings is what I want to see.  No more stupid Blake Lively.

* The projector at my screening kept shaking back and forth.  Any still moments were almost completely ruined.  But it gave me an excuse to look away at the screen.

* Loved the look of the Yellow Lantern costume.  Gorgeous.

* Was there ever a scene where he demonstrated his ability to overcome fear?  He did completely destroy a multimillion dollar plan because he got scared.