Movie Review: The Green Lantern

Even with RR's abs, I was
bored! Can you believe that?

It’s a good thing that the Green Lantern had a decent opening weekend (it earned $52.6 million) because I suspect it will fall off considerably next week. Even with the charm (and abs) of Ryan Reynolds, the movie just wasn’t good. It barely managed to hold my attention.

Apparently, for those of you not up on your superhero lore, the Green Lantern Corp is an intergalactic group dedicated to prowling the universe and eradicating evil and fear. To be a Green Lantern, you have to be fearless. So when one of the most fearless Green Lanterns, Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison),crash lands on Earth, he sends his ring to find the best person on the planet to replace him.

The ring finds test pilot Hal Jordan, who is fearless when it comes to bravery and fearful when it comes to responsibility. Hal learns quickly that the ring has the power to manifest whatever he’s thinking. Of course there has to be a villan. The Green Lantern’s nemesis is Parallax, who thrives on fear. At the beginning of the film, Parallax escapes, and is responsible for killing Abin Sur. However, the government gets a hold of his alien corpse and brings in geeky scientist Hector Hammond (Peter Saarsgard) to conduct the autopsy. However, he gets some of the evil alien goop on his finger and begins his metamorphosis into evil.

I’ll be honest. This is a hard review to write because I was just bored. I was bored with Reynolds learning to use his powers. I was bored with all the metaphysical talk of the Green Lanterns out in the universe harnessing the power of will to banish fear. I was bored with Hal's relationship with fellow test pilot Carol Ferris (Blake Lively). I was just bored.

I like Ryan Reynolds and totally believe in his ability to carry a movie, but not this one. I am also a fan of Saarsgard but he was given very little to do here. And the script was wooden and horrific. Any actor tasked with these lines is in trouble, not matter how good they are.

This movie is all about effects (and I wasn’t even impressed there) but effects alone don’t make a decent movie. As far as Green Lantern, someone needs to turn the light off.