Green Lantern (2011)

"Are you afraid, human?", 24 November 2017

Cocky test pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is the first human recruited to join the Green Lantern Corps – a centuries old intergalactic police force. To the more experienced members of the force, Hal is unlikely to ever live-up to the standards of the Corps. Even Hal doubts he can measure up. Meanwhile, an evil being, known as Parallax, has escaped from an underground prison. The best and brightest of the Green Lanterns engage Parallax, but are ultimately defeated. As Parallax continues its deadly rampage across space, it's on a collision course with Earth. Without support from the rest of the Green Lanterns, Hal is left on his own to face an enemy too powerful for the rest of the Corps.

I've never read any Green Lantern comics, so I'm not very familiar with the character, backstory, or anything else. Therefore, I'm not going to make comments on how faithful the film is or is not to the source material. Considering all the negative things I've read across the internet on Green Lantern, I was surprised to find I enjoyed the movie as much as I did. It's nowhere near as bad as I'd been led to believe. A few things that worked for me: the overall story arc, the handling of the Green Lantern Corps, the uber-creepy Dr Harry Hammonds, and some of the action sequences and death scenes. Speaking of death scenes, when Tim Robbins is burned to a crisp, it's one of the "best" moments in the whole film. I also really liked the way director Martin Campbell and the special effects people involved with the film chose to image the Green Lanterns' powers and bring them to the screen. Very creative. If some of the acting (Blake Lively displays the emotional range of a rock) and characters (Ryan Reynolds plays Hal like the biggest ass on the planet), Green Lantern might have been a much better overall film. Still, a 5/10 isn't all that bad for a movie that, going in, I thought was going to be hot garbage.

Having watched Green Lantern after Ryan Reynolds made Deadpool, am I alone in looking at his portrayal of Hal as something like Deadpool- lite? It's like he used Green Lantern as a dry run of sorts for Deadpool. It's not as over-the-top, but there are similarities. However, with Deadpool, it's funny, but with Green Lantern, he looks like a d__k.

5/10