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Green Lantern

Ouch.

I don’t know and don’t care about anything from The Green Lantern comic books; movies are a different medium with their own language and guidelines to follow.

Premise

The movie split its time between the space nonsense and earthly issues. Obviously the story that had the potential to be more captivating was the one on earth. Who was able to relate to anything in that other world? It’s also not wise to juggle two threads that way, even if they eventually connect. The earth part was basically about an extraordinary man in an ordinary world. The part about the Green Lantern Corps and the intergalactic threat was really about an extraordinary man in an extraordinary world, which is rarely interesting. See Thor for a similar comment.

Structure/Plot , Objective

Once again this summer, the main character was passive for most of Act 2. The hero needs to act, face obstacles and fight the bad guy. Why is that so difficult to pull off?! Here, Hal Jordan was thinking and moping and admiring his new powers while the universe was being threatened. Even worse, there was a point in Act II where he decided to go and fight- great- and then he became dejected and reverted back to passive mode. I don’t recall another movie with such a stupid sequence.

Character

It made no sense that the ring chose Hal, gave him the powers, and then he had to learn to overcome his issue and truly become The Green Lantern. This was different in Thor because that character was born with powers and then had to learn to be a leader.

And an irresponsible womanizer was the chosen one? Gimme a break. The way the story was set up, Hal should have been a straight-arrow, moral person from the beginning.

Little things

There were so many that they added up to be huge.

- The other Green Lanterns were part of a group protecting the universe and upholding justice. So what did these decent beings do when a newbie joined them? They pounded him in training and showed him tough love! Ridiculous. The movie did this because of the rule of ‘conflict is drama.’ Problem was, this conflict was forced, not natural.

- The Green Lantern got a mask to protect his identity, yet everyone in the audience realized it did not help and even the Blake Lively character saw right through it. So what was the point?!

- I didn’t buy Blake as an executive at the company and a jet fighter pilot.

- If the sages from the Green Lantern world (or whatever those old beings were called) captured the energy of will power, then why couldn’t they simply harness it through the rings alone, why did they need a lantern as an intermediary? Since it’s make-believe, it should have been a straight and simple approach.

- Finally, even though anything is possible in the land of make-believe, I felt The Green Lantern’s powers were hard to accept. The ring created any object from his thoughts? And helped him fly? And produced his costume? Too much and too broad.

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