Jamie
We’ve been on two streaks lately. One is watching films we’ve seen before. In some cases it’s just once before (Green Lantern), in others it’s several times (The Animal), and then still others it’s dozens if not millions of times (Canadian Bacon). The other streak is seeing films where I go, ‘While I don’t think this is great, I also kind of miss this style of movie. If only they could give us more The Animal’s!’ Could Green Lantern keep that streak alive? I recall exactly where I was when I watched Green Lantern because I went into it thinking “I’m ready to like this movie because it can’t really be as bad as people say it is.” Unfortunately, the critics were correct and I really did not like the film. But time heals all wounds, so let’s see if this is actually a hidden gem in the superhero genre that’ll leave me with a fond feeling of nostalgia.
To recap, Hal Jordan is a hot shot pilot who breaks all of the rules. When he is pitted against a couple of robot planes you know rules are about to be broken. And they are. But also he’s haunted by his father’s death and in a panic has to bail out of his plane following all his rad risk taking. Everyone is pretty pissed at him because he probably cost his company a big contract, but his GF4Life, Carol, swoops in and smooths it all over. While he’s off contemplating his life he’s snapped up by a green light and brought to a dying alium. This alium is a Green Lantern, a team of space cops that keep the whole universe safe. He was mortally wounded by a fear alium called Parallax and now his ring must choose a new Green Lantern. Turns out that’s Hal. Hal is then transported to the Green Lantern realm where they start to teach him how to be a Lantern, but ultimately decide that humans are too weak. He goes back to Earth despondent. Since he’s been gone the nerd son of a US Senator, Hector, was called to study the dead alium and he gets poisoned by fear. This ultimately takes over his body giving him psychic abilities and slowly draining him physically. At a celebration of his company’s big contract, Hal witnesses a disaster caused by Hector and steps in to use his Lantern powers to save the day. Shortly thereafter he battles Hector again and through a telepathic link learns of Parallax’s plan to destroy Earth. Horrified he begs the rest of the Lanterns to help him, but failing that to at least delay using the power of fear against Parallax until he has a chance to try to defeat it himself. They agree and in the final battle Hal is able to use his courage and cunning to trick Parallax into flying into the sun like a giant dope. He then smooches Carol hard and flies away to become a space cop. THE END.
Nope! I hate this movie. This is one of my least favorite watches we’ve had this year. Satire is dead, but this might have been able to revive it… you know, if they weren’t actually trying to make a real movie. It seems impossible that they could do everything so wrong. Just by chance you would think some things would go right, but even the thing I think was underrated at the time (Peter Sarsgaard’s villain, who is more fun than I remember) was relegated to a joke when he literally wheels out in a wheelchair to face our hero in the final fight. A nerd in a wheelchair is the final boss?! That’s funny, right? Anyway, the film very quickly lands in CGI muck that makes whole scenes incomprehensible and editing it all together a nightmare. It does seem about right that the director ran in the opposite direction of this and ended up making things like Memory starring Liam Neeson… where the only thing computer generated was Liam Neeson’s knees. Ay oh.
Hot Take Clam Bake! This isn’t the end. Now, I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out. I know we see him fly off into space to be a space cop and all that, so sure we think “we got all the story, case closed. No more Green Lantern for us.” But then if you watch after the credits they show Sinestro (that character we all know and love) totally put on the fear ring that Hal told him to definitely not put on. So like… I think we just have to wait a little bit longer and we’ll get that story. Maybe they are just waiting for the DCU to catch up so we can see it… like when Batgirl comes out, maybe we’ll be in the right spot to get that film we’ve all been waiting so patiently for…. Wait… what happened to Batgirl?!?! You can’t do this to Franchise Guy! Hot Take Temperature: Searing Sarcasm.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! What are we talking about? Are we talking about Ryan Reynolds flying around with a bad CGI super suit and losing a bunch of money? Let’s go!
There are two different versions of this film. For the record I watched the Extended Cut. I have a feeling the Extended Cut is slightly better than the theatrical, only because the first half of this film is actually kind of nice. Actually, everything besides the Green Lantern stuff works for me.
Very funny re-listening to the Flop House episode of this where they say (I think correctly) that Ryan Reynolds “is not a movie star. At least not yet.” That was 100% accurate at the time. It would end up being untrue a decade later when he somehow became a billionaire and stars in a bunch of franchises and stuff.
One of those rare movies where I think something relatively small is the worst bit of the film. I think the soundtrack is the worst. A pretty terrible example of the heavy metal that was popular at the time (and definitely isn’t popular now).
What did we learn here? We learned to not be openly hostile to your genius son because he’ll probably telekinesis you around and then barbeque you with some inexplicably available robot flamethrower arms.
We learned that you can just quit your job and keep the stuff they gave you even if it was a super awesome green lantern ring. This feels like a “company laptop” type deal. There is no way he is just flying around on Earth with that ring after quitting.
We learned Sinestro is a jerk boss whose onboarding plan appears to be “demean this person for an hour and see if he quits.” Wrong strat on Hal it turns out, and guess what? He’s the best.
And finally we learned that Hal is extraordinary because humans are extraordinary. We are, it turns out, especially imaginative. Like we can imagine throwing a big large evil blob into the Sun. You didn’t think of that Sinestro, did you?
He probably thought of it because it has been done multiple times in other comic book movies at this point. I call it the Quest for Peace. Throw all the bad junk in the Sun and forget about it.
Definitely Product Placement (What?) for Dell servers which run all the cutting edge weapons start ups. I think that’s it. This is Bad because it is boring, but it was closer to Good than people want to admit, they just majorly fumble all the stuff involving Green Lantern.
Read about my sequel in the Quiz. Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 