Ryan Reynolds is Hal Jordan, a cocky test pilot chosen to be the first human to wield a Green Lantern ring. Never before was there an opportunity to see if one of our own deserved the honor of becoming one of these space enforcers, a member of the Green Lantern Corps, the police force of the universe. The greatest of all 3,600 of them, Abin-Sur (Temuera Morrison, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena), responsible for Sector 2814–in which encompasses the Milky Way– transfers his duty to Jordan after suffering a fatal wound inflicted by a planet-devouring entity known as Parallax (voiced by Clancy Brown, Shawshank Redemption).
The ring chooses Jordan, even though he did not exhibit all of the desired qualities but it felt Jordan had the determination and bravery to conquer over evil. Most of all he had an incredible amount of willpower, the most important quality in a Green Lantern. It’s just sometimes hard to see that potential behind the snarky comments, recklessness, and indecisiveness. Willpower is the fuel to construct whatever Green Lantern imagines through the ring, signified by green manifestations. Imagine a giant turreted gun, presto. Need a giant catapult? It’s covered. How about giant fist to punch out three bad guys at once? That’s actually a signature move.
Jordan is summoned to planet Oa, where governed by several pale blue-skinned immortals called the Guardians who sit high atop perched, draped in never-ending red robes. Oa is central base for the Lanterns where they train and are debriefed by their acting leader, Sinestro (Mark Strong, Sherlock Holmes) who amps them up for battle with the Parallax, an amorphous, cloud of destruction who is actually a fallen member of the Guardians. He was lured by a great source of yellow energy (that is fueled by fear) and consumed by it. Now Parallax travels the universe, growing on those who fear it.
Reluctant to embrace the honor he’s been given, Jordan is intimidated by how advanced other Lanterns are in comparison. Jordan is also riddled by a great deal of fear that he’d never live up to the standard of his father, a heroic pilot who died in an accident. Fellow test pilot and childhood friend Carol Ferris (Blake Lively, Gossip Girl), Jordan’s on and off again love interest tries to inspire Jordan to face his anxieties and for the first overcome his fears and move forward in life despite how often he’s let her down.
Meanwhile, Abin Sur’s body was retrieved to have his alien physiologies studied by Dr. Hector Hammond (Peter Skarsgaard, Jarhead) a brilliant scientist from academia but is infected by a shard of Parallax stuck in the Sur’s wound. Slowly, Hammond’s body and mind becomes a host for Parallax and a lighthouse for Parallax to find Earth.
I’ve had to set up this story, and that’s one of the problems that plagues Green Lantern; it has 70 years of stories to draw upon and instead of choosing the best plot points to set up the origin, one could feel there was an obligation to pack more than what was needed to tell this story. Despite a grossly swollen budget, Green Lantern lacks the confidence that there may be sequels. It has the skeleton and muscles of a quality movie but some of the organs are not fully developed.
It’s the exposition, the way the story unfolds, and the editing that above all, makes what should be smooth story, drag like a ten-ton anchor at times. At the center of the issues is Reynolds and Lively, but not for their acting. Neither Hal Jordan nor Carol Ferris stood out because there emotions for each other were ambiguous. They were tepid at the beginning of the film and left only slightly improved by the end. There were also several problematic scenes that involve the two of them on screen together.
First, there’s just far too many of them that said the same thing. Yes we want these characters to develop, but there are too many scenes where they talk about what they should do instead of doing them. Again. Show. Don’t tell. Jordan and Ferris’ conversations play out as if they haven’t seen each other in five years, constantly living in the past, but these are people who work with each other nearly every day. We should get a hint of their history, not a detailed map.
Where was the natural conversation between two competitive pilots? At no point did Carol ask, “What’s it like to fly?” or “How fast can you go?” or “How can you pass up the opportunity to fly in the skies/space where no human has ever gone?” They should talk like pilots, not long lost pen pals. That kind of conversation would have been a more natural progression into overcoming Hal’s fear.Then there are the awkward transitions. For instance, at the beginning of the climax, Hal rescues Carol out of Parallax’s reach in the hangar; the story cuts quickly to the two of them on a rooftop several dozen miles away from the harrowing action to calmly discuss how he can defeat Parallax all while civilians are being eaten alive. Another takes place after Jordan appears to Ferris as Green Lantern, they discuss how he walked away from the GL Corps, and suddenly, she’s hurt, wants to be brought back and left alone and cries with no real explanation.
Hal’s first trip to Oa is edited with scenes of Hammond being taken over by Parallax’s infection. The mash-up of these two scenes creates a jarring, distracting moment when Hal’s origin should have been a more pure experience. We are bombarded with the contrast of Hal’s and Hector’s paths in life.
Other odd transitions and edits, are of Hal constantly waking up after an extended action sequence as if he was coming out of a dream. He wasn’t dreaming but why so many transitions involve him waking up? There’s also a high volume of scenes of Hal traveling from one point to the other. Had these areas been cleaned up, tightened, Green Lantern would have vastly improved the flow of the film.
Some other things that don’t work in this film: Angela Bassett and Tim Robbins in trivial roles, the character of Jordan’s friend Thomas Kalmaku (Taika Waititi), and shoehorning the father-child subplot for every major character. What’s disappointing is that these relatively simple but glaring miscues overshadow the good in the film, much of which gets shortchanged for the aforementioned scenes of mixed emotions.
Blame should be put on the editor Stuart Baird, the trio of screenwriters Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim, and director Martin Campbell. Co-producer, consultant on the film, DC Comics Chief Creative Officer and long-time writer of the modern-day Green Lantern comics, Geoff Johns should share part of the blame as well. We want our comics packed with content, but in film, there are ways to get that muscle on the bones and it’s not through extra exposition. This was not their best foot forward.
I wanted more training with Kilowog, more mastering of his constructs, more test pilot material, and more of Jordan’s family who are all but forgotten 20 minutes into the film. The battle between Sinestro and Parallax was much too brief. Maybe it was to illustrate how dangerous Parallax was, or how much hot air fills Sinestro. The great Corps leader did boast how great they were, how much better their constructs were, yet Jordan outclasses a task force of Green Lanterns, including Sinestro, on just his third moment of heroism all by himself–demystifying the greatness of the Corps some.
The special effects for all of the Corps and Oa are stunning; the voice casting was inspired (Geoffrey Rush as Tomar-Re and Michael Clarke Duncan as Kilowog). Peter Skarsgaard had a lot of fun as the tormented Hammond, and was one of the few characters that had a complete arc. Mark Strong makes an excellent Sinestro, who we’ll see much more of, if there’s a sequel. That’s a big if.
As for the 3D, Green Lantern is front-loaded with movement for your glasses, and I was excited I might see a conversion worth the extra money but halfway through it’s mostly used for depth of field, dashing any justification for wearing the glasses past the 30-minute mark. Hollywood: If you’re going to entice me to upgrade to the 3D admission, give me a film that maintains that extra experience all the way through.
Iron Man is still for many, the high bar for super hero movies–especially origins. It succeeded because it didn’t feel the need to introduce so much of the character’s history in a two-hour film. In another winning formula, Batman Begins, there was an drawn out portion of Batman’s origin shown before he could realize what he could be, which he eventually does in The Dark Knight when it takes the demise of Harvey Dent for Batman to see the further sacrifices needed to make a real difference.
Hal Jordan of this Green Lantern tale is bestowed the gift of the power ring, treats it like a burden, and understandably crumbles under the immense pressure of having to fight the worst threat to ever face the Green Lantern Corps as a rookie on the job. Parallax is a foe worthy of a sequel or the three-quel; if writers (and producers) were dead set on him as the foe, this should have been instead an introduction to the character in peak form, with phases of his origin sprinkled throughout in a creative way.
As a fan of the comic, Green Lantern was ambitious but careless not to give Hal Jordan’s origin story a flawless treatment. Yet, even with the imperfections, I saw enough that I want to see a sequel because there’s no longer a need to be a slave to the origin story. The story of Green Lantern can just move forward from this point as we could see Ferris’ evolution into villain Star Sapphire and then there’s that scene that occurs in the end credits.
I just don’t know if there was enough for mainstream audiences to share that same desire.
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