Medium: Movie
Runtime: 1hr, 54 Minutes
Genre: Superhero
Rating: PG-13
Let's flash back to 2011. Bitter rivals Marvel and DC are still duking it out in the comics world, but in the film industry the only thing propping DC up is Batman while Marvel has launched a string of hit movies, all interconnected within the same canon.
Uh-oh. Bad news for DC, then. The solution? Launch a cinematic universe of their own.
WhileGrimdark Space Jesus Man of Steel currently stands as the start of the DC cinematic universe, readers may be surprised to learn that the intended beginning was Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds as the titular verdant superhero.
This movie centers around the Green Lantern Corps, an organization of green-spandex'ed space police that use magic ALIEN SCIENCE rings to manifest the user's willpower into physical objects. The more powerful a user's will, the stronger their constructs can become. Our planet's resident Lantern is Hal Jordan, a brash and irresponsible ace pilot who is drafted to the Corps when a dying Lantern crash-lands on Earth following a fatal encounter with fear-munching monster Parallax. Quite naturally, while he gets away with the ring and the lantern and then is whisked off to a distant planet for space cop boot camp, a mysterious government agency retrieves the ex-Lantern's corpse and proceeds to autopsy it. Also quite naturally, a tiny piece of the fear-munching monster is still inside to infest the scientist working on the autopsy, give him psychic fear-powers, and slowly warp his body and mind in time for a final confrontation.
Now, the movie completely tanked in the box office, which is sort of sad. I'm not going to say that it's anything spectacular- it certainly pales in comparison to the frenetic energy of Iron Man- but it is surprisingly well-constructed for what it was meant to be. There's lots of clever blink-and-you-miss-it foreshadowing here and there, not just for Green Lantern but also for the greater film universe that would have followed in its wake. Amanda Waller makes an appearance here, for example, and while I had no clue who she was when I first saw this film in the theater (as I'm somewhat a stranger to comics canon), 6 years and 3 seasons of Arrow later I sat up and laughed in shock when she introduced herself. As a springboard for a cinematic universe, it works just fine- I think the problem is, however, that as a standalone film, it's just okay. Not great. Not awful. Just sorta meh. And meh wasn't what DC needed to stand up to the Marvel juggernaut.
So while I understand why DC threw away everything this film set up to chase down a different kind of cinematic universe, it still kills me to see the direction they took. Man of Steel was six shades of depressing, andBatbat vs. Destructoman Batman v. Superman came off as try-hard edgy as a seventh-grader's Naruto fan character.
Most depressing of all, at the end of the movie (during the credits), it's teased that Sinestro would go on to star as the main villain in the (aborted) sequel. I actually think it's a crying shame that Green Lantern bombed the box office, as seeing the villainous Sinestro wearing the same suit as the good guys was one of the most interesting parts of the movie, and I'd have loved to have watched his betrayal in full. Actually, there's another point- the characters. All of the characters are likeable and interesting- if not in their designs then in their personality- except for Hal Jordan and scientist/rival, Hector. I didn't even realize Hector was meant to be some sort of dark mirror for Hal until they pointed it out at the end, and Hal 'overcoming' his fear (of a lot of things, actually) felt sorta... forced. The yellow fish guy? Cool and funny. The big beefy drill sergeant guy that trains Hal? Ugly, but still pretty cool. The Guardians? Super-interesting. The guy playing Sinestro? Sold it, and I lament the lack of sequel simply so I could watch him some more. Hal Jordan and his foil, though?
.....ehhhhhh.
I guess Hector's bad-guy form is pretty grotesque, and we do get some interesting scenes from him, but he's sort of bland as far as villains go. This is in all likelihood because he's overshadowed by Parallax, who Hal is going to have to fight at the end of the movie because of course he is, and who is a lot bigger and more powerful. I don't just wonder- if they'd stuck to a single villain instead of trying to give equal screen time to two, would it have done better?
Alas, we may never know.
TL;DR- A perfectly serviceable superhero origin flick with blah leads but otherwise great characters, aesthetics, and ideas. Beats the hell out of what DC's doing with its properties nowadays (Wonder Woman's excellence notwithstanding).
Virtues: Nice bold colors, Sinestro (just, like, on the whole), neat settings.
Sins: Dull lead hero/villain, Amanda Waller seems out of character (i.e. not a hyper-competent superbitch), inconsistent CGI quality, Ryan Reynolds' performance as Green Lantern... is just sort of okay.
Score: 7/10
Final Verdict: Better In Retrospect
I think I'll be keeping this one as a reminder of what could have been. It may be popular to bag on DC for the dumpster fires that were Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman, and Suicide Squad, but those weren't always the plan. And seeing what the company has become, I think I prefer the original plan.
Runtime: 1hr, 54 Minutes
Genre: Superhero
Rating: PG-13
Let's flash back to 2011. Bitter rivals Marvel and DC are still duking it out in the comics world, but in the film industry the only thing propping DC up is Batman while Marvel has launched a string of hit movies, all interconnected within the same canon.
Uh-oh. Bad news for DC, then. The solution? Launch a cinematic universe of their own.
While
 |
| Mine actually says "Action-Packed!", but finding a not-crappy image of the DVD cover was hard enough without getting exact. |
Now, the movie completely tanked in the box office, which is sort of sad. I'm not going to say that it's anything spectacular- it certainly pales in comparison to the frenetic energy of Iron Man- but it is surprisingly well-constructed for what it was meant to be. There's lots of clever blink-and-you-miss-it foreshadowing here and there, not just for Green Lantern but also for the greater film universe that would have followed in its wake. Amanda Waller makes an appearance here, for example, and while I had no clue who she was when I first saw this film in the theater (as I'm somewhat a stranger to comics canon), 6 years and 3 seasons of Arrow later I sat up and laughed in shock when she introduced herself. As a springboard for a cinematic universe, it works just fine- I think the problem is, however, that as a standalone film, it's just okay. Not great. Not awful. Just sorta meh. And meh wasn't what DC needed to stand up to the Marvel juggernaut.
So while I understand why DC threw away everything this film set up to chase down a different kind of cinematic universe, it still kills me to see the direction they took. Man of Steel was six shades of depressing, and
 |
| Not to mention how the new DC cinematic universe seems to be afraid of using any color that isn't either gray or muted into oblivion. |
.....ehhhhhh.
I guess Hector's bad-guy form is pretty grotesque, and we do get some interesting scenes from him, but he's sort of bland as far as villains go. This is in all likelihood because he's overshadowed by Parallax, who Hal is going to have to fight at the end of the movie because of course he is, and who is a lot bigger and more powerful. I don't just wonder- if they'd stuck to a single villain instead of trying to give equal screen time to two, would it have done better?
Alas, we may never know.
TL;DR- A perfectly serviceable superhero origin flick with blah leads but otherwise great characters, aesthetics, and ideas. Beats the hell out of what DC's doing with its properties nowadays (Wonder Woman's excellence notwithstanding).
Virtues: Nice bold colors, Sinestro (just, like, on the whole), neat settings.
Sins: Dull lead hero/villain, Amanda Waller seems out of character (i.e. not a hyper-competent superbitch), inconsistent CGI quality, Ryan Reynolds' performance as Green Lantern... is just sort of okay.
Score: 7/10
Final Verdict: Better In Retrospect
I think I'll be keeping this one as a reminder of what could have been. It may be popular to bag on DC for the dumpster fires that were Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman, and Suicide Squad, but those weren't always the plan. And seeing what the company has become, I think I prefer the original plan.
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