Writer: Multipass
I didn’t actually find the film as awful as I had expected based on the reviews. I was genuinely entertained by the Parallax, Sinestro, Green Lantern corps parts of the movie, but the other 50% of the plot is what killed it. Ryan Reynolds was ok, but I didn’t feel like he brought anything to the character that made him stand out as a superhero, and any time he was in Hal Jordan mode he was kind of a whiney little kid.
One major problem was the love story/dead father part of the plot. Blake Lively, who plays Carol Ferris, has about as much charisma as a dead fish, and she sounds kind of drunk when she talks. So I guess she has the charisma of a dead fish that died of alcohol poisoning. The only good moments she had were when she realizes Hal is a Green Lantern, and when she tells him she feels sorry for him. Otherwise she was a huge time waste. I think I’d have rather seen more of Hal’s scientist friend. And I am so tired of people fighting over a girl in these superhero movies, there has got to be a better reason to try to kill someone after you have been infected by Parallax than boring Carol Ferris. She and Hal had what seemed like 4 or 5 scenes of this:
Hal: Closetalking Closetalking
Carol: Closetalking Closetalking
Hal: Closetalking
Carol: “Something is wrong Hal, what happened?”
Hal: “I don’t wanna tell you!!!! WAAAH!! *stompstompstomp*”
Carol: Look of longing and/or curiosity
Yes, it was that riveting.
The whole bit about Hal being afraid of…dying like his father did? Not living up to his dad’s legacy? Whatever it was it was pretty lame and kind of melodramatic.
The other story issue I had was with the creation of the yellow ring. Now, I understand why this is important in terms of a sequel, but the way it was introduced was just non –sensical. The Guardians are billions of years old, and have always believed in the power of will as the strongest force in the world. Yet, for absolutely no reason, they decide to do basically nothing about Parallax themselves, and instead let Sinestro create a yellow ring, a ring that harnesses the power of fear, to “fight fear with fear”. Why the hell is that a good idea? They already know what happens to people who try to harness the power of fear, one of their own did it, and he turned into the evil blob Parallax. So why let Sinestro try? It’s almost like they WANT to create another villain…either that or after a billion years dementia is finally setting in.
All in all, the movie was just okay, the effects and CGI were wonderful and I’m glad I got to see all of that on a big screen. I also appreciated an appearance by Amanda Waller, though as soon as she called Abin Sur the first alien they’d ever found I thought “Bitch please you know all about Superman!"
At times the film was interesting, like when addressing the power of will or fear etc, and also really pretty. At other times it was kind of tedious and disjointed. I’d recommend everyone aside from massive Green Lantern fans to wait for this to hit dvd, which I'm sure most of you have decided to do already anyway.
