Green Lantern (2011)

Film: Green Lantern (2011)

Director: Martin Campbell

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Mark Strong

This was always going to be a tricky one. Martin Campbell and Ryan Reynolds had a massive job on their hands to make Green Lantern a success. First of all, the film had to be good enough and big enough to please the masses - to pull in the punters off the street to see this blockbuster, to generate the cash to rationalise this expensive movie. But the biggest task that Campbell and Reynolds faced was pleasing the fanboys, the men and women who have been following the character for years in the comics. Now I love Green Lantern and Hal Jordan in the comics, he's quickly become one of my favourite characters in the DC universe over the last few months as we built up to the film's release. My graphic novel collection of Geoff John's tales of the Green Lantern Corps has been expanding at a pace that my bank balance probably won't be able to sustain. So I knew the back-story and the history entering the cinema last night and knew what to expect to a degree, but I would never consider myself a rabid fanboy that craves absolute authenticity and would burn down the Warner Bros. studio if the people responsible got it all wrong. I'm not that mental...

Still, I wanted a faithful representation of the character with a good story and that's largely what I got, contrary to what the merciless critics and fanboys have said in the press. Martin Campbell is a good director but I thought he was perhaps an odd choice for a super-hero movie, especially one so detached from reality like this. I loved Goldeneye, and Casino Royale is my favourite Bond film ever but Green Lantern is a world away (literally) from the other films on his CV. However I thought he did a commendable job with what was always going to be an incredibly difficult movie - it was never going to satisfy everybody. With a film that was going to rely heavily on CGI, which I usually hate, Campbell told the story well and it was enjoyable for the majority of the 105 minutes. On the topic of CGI I could see no faults with any of it and I simply sat back and embraced what was happening on screen. If you start to analyse these types of films too much, you'll run into a mess that will undoubtedly make you miss the whole point of the movie.

The cast were decent throughout and good on the whole. Ryan Reynolds was a natural Hal Jordan, more so when he was out of costume but he seemed to grow into the role as his character did, embracing what it means to be a Green Lantern over the course of the film. It was crucial to get the right guy for the lead and I can think of few actors out there more suited to Hal Jordan than Reynolds. Peter Sarsgaard was the baddie, the evil Hector Hammond and he was actually a lot better than I was expecting. In every trailer and in all the build-up I felt that if there was going to be any weak link in Green Lantern it would be Sarsgaard's Hammond but I was pleasantly surprised. The makeup was probably too over-the-top and his dialogue a bit iffy but he was menacing and dangerous and Sarsgaard did a good job with a character who must have been a nightmare to try and replicate on screen; overall, Sarsgaard wasn't half bad and didn't bring down the movie as much I as I thought he could have. Blake Lively performed well in the time she was given and like her role in The Town, she was perfect as the eye candy and had good chemistry with Reynolds. Some criticised her for being a poor representation as Carol Ferris but I didn't see it, Lively was more than acceptable. Perhaps the best performance in Green Lantern came from Mark Strong who was excellent as Sinestro, another difficult character to get right. Lots of people have said that the relationship between Hal and Sinestro was underwhelming and that it felt incomplete but Campbell and the writers can't fit everything in and what scenes Strong was in, he was fantastic. I felt he was a terrific as Sinestro and my mate practically jizzed when he saw Strong pull on that yellow ring at the end. It was a good moment for sure.

To conclude, Green Lantern wasn't a great superhero film but it was good enough, in my opinion. It certainly had its flaws but it also had its moments too, and overall the film was enjoyable. As a comics fan I loved seeing the characters I enjoy reading about on the big screen. Put it this way: if you can't tell your Hal Jordan from your Tomar Re and have no idea about the history of the character or what to expect, I don't expect you'll enjoy this film. Kids will love it for the action but people unfamiliar with the Green Lantern universe might struggle to embrace the idea. Its not like the story is hard to understand but to Green Lantern newcomers, the movie probably isn't the best place to start as you're kind of thrown into it and rushed through. There is a rich history to the characters on screen that this film, and probably any other rendition, cannot capture like its paper-based predecessors have done.

A More Enjoyable Reality Rating: 6.5/10

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