Movie Review: Green Lantern

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Story, humor, but most of all characters

Cons: Some cheesy scenes and effects in a spot or two

The Bottom Line:

Across space and time

Comes a superhero film

That is tons of fun

"The Pilot, He Gave Me This Ring."  "He Proposed?" 

I have a confession to make about superhero movies.  While I go see quite a few of them and even enjoy some of them, it's rare to find one I really love.  So I was reluctant to see Green Lantern, figuring I'd go see it if it worked to see it with some friends.  Well, I'm glad it worked out because this was lots of fun.

Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is a test pilot.  He's the best at what he does, or he would be if he actually cared.  For example, the morning the movie opens, he's late for a test flight and almost loses his company a contract with the government.

Everything changes for him that night when a mysterious green glowing orb picks him up and takes him to the sight of a spaceship crash.  The alien inside is dying and he tells Hal that Hal has been chosen to become part of the green lantern force that protects the galaxy.

Hal isn't sure he wants that responsibility, however.  But he's going to need to decide soon because a force is coming toward Earth and Hal is the only thing that might be able to save us.

This movie has been getting some pretty bad reviews, and I'm not quite sure why.  I can certainly understand complaints about the overall story.  This is an origins story like most of the superhero movies out there.  There are certain plot elements we are going to see that we've been seeing in all these movies.

For me, what made the familiarity of the plot work was the characters.  I absolutely loved them.  Hal is wasting his life, but he comes across more as someone who is struggling with what he wants out of life.  Once he gets his powers, he begins to find that, even if he isn't sure he wants it.  The love interest is Carol Ferris, played by Blake Lively, and she is also a true friend to Hal, believing in him before he's willing to believe in himself.  I guess what works for me is I felt that Hal was an everyman.  He wasn't a rich tycoon or an alien.  He's someone I could really relate to.

And for that, they picked a great lead actor.  Ryan Reynolds can be a bit of a goof, and we get those antics at times in the movie.  But he surprised me here with his surprisingly strong performance when the script called for it.  Carol isn't your typical love interest, and Blake really brought that character to life.  The rest of the cast was fine as well.

Now there was some debate in my group about the special effects.  One person thought they could have been better.  And since so much of this movie relies on special effects (even the costume that Hal wears as Green Lantern is CGI), that's a pretty serious thing.  Personally, I thought they held up rather well.  A few times they didn't look quite as good, but I thought that was on purpose to better show what the character was going through.

I will give the critics this, some of the scenes had some extremely cheesy dialog.  We're talking cliché city.  Now maybe it's just me wanting to excuse the movie's faults because I liked it, but it seemed to me like it was done with a tongue firmly in cheek.  I felt like the movie was winking at us, saying, "I know this is what you expect in this scene, so here it is."  I'm probably giving the writers too much credit, however, but for me those cheesy scenes were fun.  The movie has plenty of clever, truly funny lines as well, some of them actually do lend credibility to my theory.

Another complaint I have heard is that there wasn't enough action.  Frankly, I didn't feel like it was much worse than some of the other first superhero movies we've seen recently.

Then again, maybe my love of this movie is my envy of Green Lantern's powers.  Not only can he fly, but he can create things from his imagination?  Oh, how I would love to be able to do that.

In the end, I think opinion of Green Lantern will be based solely on taste.  Personally, I loved it, and I hope they follow up on the teaser for a sequel very soon.