#26 Green Lantern

It’s 2011, Marvel’s cinematic universe is finding its footing and is approaching an Avengers movie, so it’s finally time for DC Comics to bring one of its most beloved characters to the big screen.

No, not that one (again), we’re working on one for next year though

No, not that one either, it’ll be 2 years before we see him again

A girl as a star of a superhero movie? Please… She’ll have to wait 5 years before she even gets a supporting role in a superhero movie.

Oh no…

DC’s reputation with comic book movies had suddenly rocketed back with the release of the Dark Knight, the best Batman movie and one of my personal favourite movies. So maybe now’s the time to try and make a movie with another character. Unfortunately they picked this one

That’s not to say I dislike Green Lantern in the comics but Green Lantern is a sci-fi series with a lot of lore and backstory

I mean let’s try and sum up Batman’s origin in a single sentence

His parents were killed so he gets trained up and fights crime wearing a ‘terrifying’ bat-suit

Superman?

His planet was destroyed so he grew up in Kansas, learning American values; he gains powers from the sun and fights crime.

Wonder Woman?

She’s the son of Ares, or maybe Zeus and she was modelled from clay and erm… OK, bad example

But Hal Jordan

He’s a pilot who’s kind of a jerk who receives a ring from a dying alien named Abin Sur; he takes the ring, which is fuelled by his willpower and becomes a space-cop of his sector 2814 under the watching of the guardians of the universe; he’s trained by Sinestro and Kilowog and then starts fighting crime.

See my point? Green Lantern is far better suited for something that can reveal it’s lore and back story a bit more slowly, such as an animated series (a live action series could be costly given the amount of CGI required for it)

Oh you have got to be… Yes, for those who don’t know, the exceptionally good Green Lantern: The Animated series met it’s end not because of low viewership or bad writing, no, it met it’s end because this movie was so bad kids wouldn’t buy Green Lantern toys, making toy stores lose any confidence in buying Green Lantern animated series toys. Well done movie, when your sh*t sinks, it drowns others in its wake.

Made with a $200m production budget, the movie barely made that making $220m at the box office, considering another $100m went into advertising this stinker, that’s a pretty bad performance.

The movie wasn’t greatly received gaining 26% rotten tomatoes and 39/100 on Metacritic. And it totally deserves that rating.

I know what you’re thinking, this is an a**-numbingly long opening to a review, can you just get on with it? Well let’s dive in

So after our main logos tinted puke green, likely a sign of the puke you’ll throw up after watching this, we get some exposition. Millions of years, immortals known as the Guardians harnessed willpower, built a world known as Oa and divided the universe into 3600 sectors, sending a ring to each one to choose a host without fear, those people would be the Green Lantern Corps. Let’s state the obvious here, why is all this exposition necessary? We hear most of the back story behind the rings and the Corps throughout the movie, the Guardians having created Oa isn’t all that important so what was the point? Also, if your rings choose those without fear, why aren't people going on murderous rampages with the rings left and right because they’re not afraid to kill? In the comics the rings had restrictions placed on them by the Guardians but they don’t explain this in the movie.

So, for the important bits, the legendary creature of fear known as Parallax has been a constant hindrance to the Corps until the legendary, and the Lantern known as Abin Sur imprisoned it on the planet Ryut. Again we’re going to get this information as the story progresses, so necessity is not here.

We open on the said planet Ryut where some explorers have crashed a spaceship or 2, they fall  through the planet’s crust and see a lot of green light surrounding a being, who awakens. The explorers are levitated into the air, the creature seems happy that they’re afraid and kills them, absorbing their skeletons and freeing himself (now this is why keeping someone this powerful imprisoned without anyone guarding is a colossally stupid idea)

We cut to 6 months later in sector 2814 where Abin pilots a space craft. Why does he need one, the ring allows him to fly? He gets a communication from Sinestro, saying that the inhabitants of the planet he’d been sent out to rescue are already dead. The Guardians are still debating their next action so Sinestro has asked for an audience. Parallax (voiced by Clancy Brown) beings to attack and wait, that’s NOT PARALAX, what is it about bad guys and weird looking clouds. To clue you in, this is Parallax

,

That is a stupid looking space cloud. We’ll get back to stupid looking space clouds in another coming review. Abin Sur is mortally wounded and escapes in the craft’s escape pod. He heads to the nearest inhabited planet giving a warning that Parallax has returned

We cut to Hal Jordan sleeping with a prostitute (well, she’s an unnamed female who won’t appear again in the movie, Hal sleeps with her but says only one line to her, so yeah… prostitute. Oh and, our hero, ladies and gentlemen, making a great first impression as always) he’s running late so rushes off for work, wrapping a parcel whilst driving without any hands on the wheel, and while he does nearly cause an accident, I’m surprised he didn’t cause a full on pile-up.

So, we hear about the latest in Ferris Aircrafts AI jets, a jet that can essentially fly itself perfectly. They’re testing them today against their company’s two best pilots. Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris. They flirt and begin their flying. Hal bails on Carol, using her as a decoy to shoot them down (I have mentioned that you’re an a**hole already, Hal) but it doesn’t work. So Hal decides to head above the heights of engagement laws, stalling all the planes engines and sending the drones into freefall where Hal has a clear shot.

Of course, Hal is about to eject from his crashing plane but he’s interrupted by obnoxious flashbacks of his father of his father’s death. This serves only so people can reference it again and again and again. In fact, let’s play a game, someone reference his father’s death, take a shot. Hal manages to bail at the last second but the jet crashes.

Hal’s faced with the consequences of being a humungous pr*ck by his boss and Carol. The boss tries to fire him, but Carol instead suspends him pending the results of an investigation. With only Hal and Carol in the room, Carol claims he had a point where he could’ve recovered (probably during the obnoxious flashbacks) and they flirt some more before Carol storms off.

Abin Sur’s spaceship lands in a sparsely but still populated area but don’t worry, it’ll be hours, even days before anyone notices. He sends out a green ball to find a replacement.

Hal arrives at his niece’s birthday party. Where he’s on the news. Wait, that test was a military contract, how did it make the news this quickly? Also, they mention his father’s death, take a shot. Then take another shot immediately afterwards for a fight with his brother, the birthday boy is in his room, worried about Hal. Seriously, how did this make the news this quickly?

He gives the guy a present, a model star-fighter given to him by his dad. You complete cheapskate!!! And don’t tell me he’s poor, he owns a freaking muscle car, you know much fuel that needs. Anyway, as he’s coming back to said car, he’s grabbed by a big green energy ball and thrown into a puddle near the space craft (Green Lantern rings are jerks like that) he sees signs of life and immediately throws himself in. You know there is a difference between being courageous and stupid, going towards an alien space ship with life inside, lingering on stupid.

He gives Hal the ring, and tells him to place the ring against the lantern and say ‘the oath’ before dying. Hal makes a call to his friend to get picked up and now finally the military show up. They drive away before being noticed.

We cut to Oa where Sinestro is relaying news to the Guardians and oh boy, what is with their stupid, overly long cloaks in this version? The Guardians only respond that they’re assessing the situation and imply that Parallax may well be powerful enough to defeat the Lantern corps. Sinestro offers to take a squadron to deal with the threat and the Guardians agree. Naturally this will not happen for a while

We cut to the home of one Hector Hammond, who gets a knock on the door by shady looking people and is knocked out. He’s taken to a top secret government research centre where he’s greeted by… That’s Amanda ‘the wall’ Waller? You know what Amanda Waller needs to be above anything else, intimidating and nope, this fails spectacularly on that one. They’ve called Hector in to study Abin Sur’s body.

Hal places his lantern battery on his table at home and tries to charge his ring, as Hector makes his examinations of Abin Sur’s body, eventually getting a static shock from the wound. Getting annoyed and shouting seems to work for Hal as all of a sudden the lantern glows. Hal then gets a knock on the door and what do you know, it’s Carol again. I swear she is approaching stalker levels now. They flirt and then they head to a bar to flirt some more.

Hector Presents his findings to Amanda and wants to go public but Waller’s employers won’t let him. You know, if you were really Amanda Waller you’d have him killed just for mentioning that. But ruthless is yet another quality this version doesn’t have. His forehead also appears to have grown, foreshadowing developments for later.

Take another shot for photo of his dad in the bar for some reason. So more flirting and Hal abruptly leaves before being confronted by a few people laid off by Ferris industries because of his stupid stunt ready to beat him up. Oh and take another shot for another dad reference. He takes them all out with his ring, setting off all the car alarms around in the process. The ring surrounds him with an aura and sends him flying through the skies.

It appears Hector is struggling to sleep as Hal makes his travels. Hal somehow opens a hyperspace ring to Oa. He wakes up in an examination chamber wearing only his pants (guess the Guardians are creepy like that) After some painful shocks Hal wears his butt-ugly CGI costume. Now I do get the costume being CGI since technically it’s a projection of the ring, but what is with all the stupid lines all over it.

As he poses in front of the mirror he’s confronted by Tomar-Re, who gives more exposition about the ring and the planet Oa. Also, good grief, could we have some better lighting, everything seems enshrouded in shadow. We get more about power and responsibility… Your movie is not Spider-man!

So they both start flying with Hal’s usual brand of showing off.  And more exposition follows… And I thought the lighting was bad before. They land amongst a load of CGI aliens as Sinestro gives a briefing. Mostly just getting characters up to speed with what we already know. Tomar gives a demonstration about the use of the ring, Hal has some trouble repeating the demonstration.

Hal is then introduced to Kilowog, a very very ugly version of Kilowog who begins his combat training and how to avoid being pulled in by the gravitational pull of a star (this will be necessary for later). After scoring some sort of victory against Kilowog he faces Sinestro. Naturally Hal gets his ass beat with Sinestro saying he’ll never be worthy of Abin Sur. He’s been a Lantern for maybe hours, give him a f*cking chance.

Hal decides… Screw the fate of the Universe as established in Sinestro’s stupid speech, I lost a p*ssing contest, I’m going home to cry. Yeah, the big problem about Hal Jordan, he’s not very likeable.

At the University of… I haven’t got a clue, Hector Hammond is conducting a lecture, he hears the thoughts of one the students, one of them calling him a loser. His eyes glow yellow and the student is launched out of his chair. He begin taking samples of his own blood and running analysis on it. He gets a text from his dad asking to meet him at his office at 3pm as a monitor reveals something’s up with his blood.

His father appears to be a senator or some sort and wants to put Hector on the board. Hector doesn’t particularly want to be the victim of nepotism as he hears his father thinking he’s wasted his life.

Sinestro’s finest lanterns conduct an attack that seems to have little strategy behind it than encase him in giant net. Naturally that plan was doomed to fail and several lanterns are killed. Sinestro reports to the Guardians that the creature is headed for Oa. Sinestro asks for answers, and they reveal that a Guardian tried to harness the power of fear, but the Guardian was corrupted and became Parallax. So, that’s the overly complicated back story to a character who really should amount to “fear-inducing, body inhabiting space bug” but naturally they mix him in with some Krona (another GL villain) because… Even if we do have sequels Krona’s an unlikely threat down the line. 

Sinestro suggests that they prepare to harness the power of fear, forging a yellow ring and giving it to members of the corps. Now, one might argue that if an all-powerful immortal like a Guardian couldn’t harness it, what hope does anyone else have? But sense seems to be abandoning us at this point

At a nice party Hal and Hector finally meet. Carol managed to pull through the deal in spite of Hal’s meddling because she’s that smart. Oh, take another shot for another reference to Hal’s father.  And finally, over an hour into this movie we finally get Hal doing something super heroic. As the senator leaves on his helicopter parked in the middle of the party, Hector blows up the engine, sending it crashing down.

Now Hal could summon anything here, a giant baseball glove, a crane, something simple to catch the plane. Hal instead provides us with a hot wheels commercial in Green. And seriously, the mask doesn’t even slightly hide your face, so… why even bother? (OK, problem in the comics too but… seriously?)

Hector returns home in a complete state, able to hear more thoughts and with his head growing so big it gains parallax’s attention. He begins trashing the office. Meanwhile Hal’s friend comes to Hal’s flat to ask him questions and get a demonstration. Who the heck is scared of the colour green anyway?

Hal heads down to Carol Ferris’ office in his lantern guise, let’s see how long it takes for her to recognise him. 30 seconds gone… Ah 38 seconds, that’s how cr*ppy that mask is. So more discussion, flirting and exposition we already know and bla bla bla. Hal mentions to Carol that he walked away, so Carol gives him a bit of motivation. Hector is watching him in his car, he enters the lab and begins analysing his blood again.

Waller and the government agents arrive and we get the origin story of Waller, why was this necessary? Anyway, she reveals that there’s a parasite living in Abin Sur which Hammond has been exposed to. He attacks his dad, who’s also at the office until they sedate him. Hal does more spider-man thinking before his ring starts alerting him to something.

Hammond wakes up but when they try and keep him under he forces the doctor to inject himself. He attacks the father and pins Waller to the wall before Hal shows up. He drops Amanda and Hal creates a green pool of water to stop him. Seriously, that couldn’t have been the most simple way, a glove, a mattress, a trampoline, surely solid objects are easier, I have never seen a lantern create a liquid projection in the comics.

Hector shoots glass so Hal projects a flame-thrower (if there’s flames coming out of that gun, they should be green as they’re still a construct of the ring) melting the glass and sends it back to Hector because you know that could’ve killed him, right? He kicks Hector backwards but is sent flying before he can release Hector’s father. They both end up on the ground (and I’m not entirely sure why in Hector’s case) and we see Hector touch Hal, releasing his secret.

Whilst still pinned to the ground, Hector telekinetically kills his father. Parallax senses this and heads towards earth to absorb the planet and gain enough energy to defeat the guardians. Hal talks with Carol and his friend about how he failed and cannot stop the creature that’s coming. Carol is confused as to why he continues to walk away from everything, the obvious answer is the one he gives, he’s afraid. Take a shot for a dad reference in her motivational speech.

According to Carol, someone with absolutely no knowledge of the lanterns whatsoever, gives the perfect reasoning for why Hal’s a lantern. He’s able to overcome his fears (which is why he always gives up at everything) but seriously a person without fear does not exist, this a crucial part of lantern lore and the ultimate flaw in the guardians is failure to even acknowledge that emotion does guide their actions. Take a second shot, she mentions his dad again.

Hector Hammond gets a message from parallax to eliminate Hal. Hal meanwhile is heading to Oa as the Guardians are preparing to harness the yellow energy into a ring. Sinestro says that he will master its power, Hal arrives to add his fuel to the fire, he warns the Guardians that Parallax is heading to Earth. He gives a speech to the guardians, interpreting one person giving into fear (he doesn’t know about that all powerful immortal that did the same) as being the same, it’s impossible to control the fear. I see a leap or two in logic there.

With the guardians not wanting to risk too many lives defending Oa, Hal says

“don’t risk any more lives, just mine” if that was your plan, why did you even come to Oa? To stop them harnessing the fear energy, you didn’t even know until now. Sinestro wishes him luck knowing he’d likey die. So after that bit of pointlessness, Hal returns to earth as Parallax also makes his return.

Hal arrives at the airfield where Hammond is hiding out, now confined to a wheelchair. Carol is suspended in the air with a bit of Parallax ready to be injected into her. This is Hector’s master plan, to get Carol to love him. WEAK!!! And yes, there’s foreshadowing to this that I’ve neglected to mention but still, this is weak plan. Hal takes off his ring and offers it to Hector in exchange for letting him go. Now Hector’s been inside Hal’s mind, he surely knows that Hal’s bluffing. Nope he accepts it and he temporarily becomes a green Lantern, but he turns the ring on Hal and finds it doesn’t work. Hal still has control of the ring. Now if that was a projection of the ring I’d understand but nope, it’s the real damned thing.

Hal saves Carol as parallax arrives and kills Hector for failing him. Fortunately his skeleton is left behind this time so Hal can go and fetch his ring. Unfortunately Parallax begins sucking him up until Carol can turn a jet’s missiles on the creature. Hal retrieves the ring and flies off as Parallax starts attacking the city, they try and evacuate but Parallax engulfs several citizens before Hal can intervene.

He flies inside parallax and drives him away from the city into space (see, Superman, this is how you do it) they head through an asteroid belt on the way to the sun which makes little sense since the asteroid belt is further from the sun than Earth before Hal has an idea. Gravity is a b*tch. Hal steadies himself by attaching himself to fighter jet projections which must surely be more work that keeping himself steady with his own aura field but yeah Parallax is killed in the sun, Abin Sur is probably embarrassed that he never tried that (well, if he were alive). Hal’s projections give way but thankfully Sinestro, Killowog and Tomar Re rescue him (so that was why he went to Oa, for a plot convenient resolution.)

Sinestro gives another speech in the overly dark Oa. Kilowog congratulates himself on his training despite the fact that he trained him for about 5 minutes. Sinestro claims now he’s just like Abin Sur. We cut back to earth where Carol is waiting with Hal. OK, this movie is nearly over, can we skip this bit. Tomar-Re gives a final speech and roll credits finally.

Oh boy, where do I begin with this. Let’s start with the obvious. THIS MOVIE SUCKS. And it’s such a shame because there’s a lot of talent behind it. Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, known for their work in the CW-verse are talented writers but man did they miss the mark here, wait the movie isn’t over yet, what now?

Sinestro decides that whilst the threat to the universe is over, he’ll put on the insanely dangerous and unpredictable yellow ring anyway in obvious bate for an unlikely sequel. OK, now the movie’s over.

This feels like DC’s failed attempt to create a Marvel movie. It’s lighter in tone than the Nolan Batman trilogy and that is a good thing. Green Lantern is not character very grounded in reality, it’s not something you need to take 100% seriously. However the problems with this movie are multiple.

The extreme amount of exposition needed to set up the lore of this world made the pacing of this movie, which bear in mind is only about 105 minutes in length, so not particularly lengthy, quite a drab. Not helping with this are the extremely underdeveloped characters and those that are entirely not necessary (like Hal’s extended family which are all but forgotten about after the birthday party scene)

The other issue is Hal himself. Whilst they try to make him likeable, to me he’s just too big a jerk and a screw-up. The fact that he managed to defeat Parallax on his own where a squad of several lanterns failed does seem rather implausible for someone so early in his career.

Then we have the villains, neither of whom make any impact whatsoever on me. Parallax may have had a bit of a tragic origin but you kind of don’t feel sorry for him since you already know he’s wiped out the inhabitants of two planets. Hector you don’t feel sorry for either because you really never got to know him as a person prior to his incident. Having him forcefully tied to Hal was rather unnecessary and lead to some really weak motivation for his character.

This movie gives me rage issues!

This movie made no money, it killed an animated series that was actually very enjoyable and I’ll be happy never to have to watch it again

Rage Rating 60%

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Images used in this review are from Green Lantern and various DC Comics and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use