Those poor Warner Bros. With their annual profits courtesy of the Daily Prophet and its scar-faced subscriber about to come to an end, and with the competition suiting up a cavalcade of costumed heroes to near endless critical praise and packed out theatres, the brothers eyes have been turning green. It seemed only logical to option out another comic book character, some flashy guy with cosmic powers and a tacky sovereign on his right hand. Do it right and they’re talking a trilogy, at least. Isn’t he even part of some sort of team, as well? Some sort of unionised superhero book club, or something? That could make money. Just throw lots of money at it, you have to spend it to make it, right? Why not make the whole thing CGI while they’re at it, 3D too, obviously, and throw a handful of plot threads and a host of characters at the screen and just see what sticks, yeah? Green Lantern, that’s his name, right? This could work… this could work… Right? Right?!
No, boys, it didn’t. It really really didn’t.
Green Lantern is the tale of Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), a renegade test pilot who, after crashing out after an unfortunately timed bout of schizophrenia turning him into Maverick from Top Gun, finds himself at a loose end. It’s not long before an intergalactic copper, looking like an alien Vic Mackey, crashes on Earth with a magic ring that summons Hal to his deathbed. By taking it, he becomes a new Green Lantern, the latest addition to a thousands strong corps of interspecies special ops, utilising the power of green energy to counter the forces of evil.
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| Still working out the ring's kinks, he wasn't below using human shields |
So it’s off to Police Academy for Hal, on the planet Oa, where it’s not all fun and games, as we soon learn that Parallax, a giant space octopus with the power of yellow, is getting ready to devour all that good and green in the universe. Meanwhile, back on Earth, a scientist (Peter Sarsgaard) is completing his autopsy of Vic Mackey when he gets infected by a splinter of Parallax, and gets a headache even Solpadeine couldn’t cure. As he becomes increasingly unstable and powerful, there could be trouble ahead for Hal and love interest Blake Lively, and even more problems when Parallax gets peckish for Earth. Will all be lost, or does Hal have what it takes to confront his fears and save the world?
There are so many problems with Green Lantern, but the biggest one is Greg Berlanti and Michael Green’s script. The story is packed full of far too many characters and story strands, in an effort to nod to the fanboys on opening weekend, that Martin Campbell’s direction never really stood a chance. Nowhere else is this clearer than the character arc of Sarsgaard’s Hector Hammond, the terrestrial baddy, whose vague piece-it-together-yourself backstory is explained entirely by mere snippets of recognition from the other characters in blink and you’ll miss them gestures. That Sarsgaard is the best thing in the film only goes further to question his final moments in the film, that will leave you thinking why they bothered sculpt all that extra cranium on his noggin in the first place.
The CGI, too, is a disaster, but only in the most redundant ways. Much has been made of the budget of the film (which, including a massive marketing strategy in the US, is believed to be north of $300m), and it’s hard to see where the money went. Oa, and the endless array of alien species populating it, are visual decent, and neatly fuse with the 3D, but don’t capture the same opulence of the Asgard we saw earlier this summer in Thor. Furthermore, the decision to mount a digitised suit onto the broad shoulders of one of Canada’s finest is one of the worst made in cinema this year. Despite it being a veritable second skin, it never looks real, so that Reynold’s head seems to be perpetually floating atop something else’s body. The mask, also digitally added, never sits right on his face, and looks, frankly, kinda lame. It’s attempting to be Avatar, and we can all see right through it.
Reynolds, already a graduate from the comic book multiverse after his role in the Wolverine spin off, is okay as Jordan, but there’s no originality to his performance, which is hampered by a severe lack of originality. And that’s exactly what this origins story is missing, and it can’t cover the cracks with its computers.
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