Green
Lantern movie’s failure can serve some good purposesGreen
Lantern movie’s failure can serve some good purposes
One of the those reasons is none other than the
involvement of Geoff Johns – the one and only – on this project,
which he clearly seems proud of. After all the severe, blatant
damage he’s done to the Flash, and Green Lantern too, I see the
film’s failure as a perfect punishment for him. Indeed, as
the Deadline Hollywood site notes, some of the disappointed
have placed blame upon his shoulders, even if not squarely.I could easily fill pages running down the plot obstacles that Lantern director Martin Campbell soullessly cycles through; identifying all the characters introduced by the film's four screenwriters, only to be easily disposed of; and "explaining" the complete hodgepodge of psychological cause-and-effects, from the pervasive daddy issues and complete absence of mothers, to the arbitrary, less-than-convincing confidence issues that Hal is able to surmount as soon as it becomes clear that Carol really wants to kiss him. But the movie never bothers to suggest that any of that really matters: Campbell’s ADD style privileges spectacle over story—so much so that the film never rewards the viewer for even trying to keep track of what is going on.
Unfortunately, the film is roundly scuppered by a laughably poor script (try sitting through that first flashback scene without giggling) which combines shockingly bad dialogue (“Oh no! Yellow power!”) with a plot that feels awkwardly rushed, as if wanting to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. It's also glaringly obvious that large chunks of the film are missing; one particular scene has Hal appearing out of nowhere, with no set-up whatsoever.
One of the biggest problems with Green Lantern is that it’s not particularly engaging. The big Green Lantern universe is explained – the Guardians, Oa, the green energy of willpower, the yellow energy of fear, the Corps, hundreds of alien species – but it remains inert on screen. Green Lantern is a pretty standard 1980s-style superhero movie with some fancy scifi trappings that don’t amount to much beyond fan service. It’s the sort of movie where we’re told that the Guardians are ancient, powerful immortals… and that’s it. There’s little else to them, and they do little else. We see the Corps in big crowd shots, and we’re told what the Corps is and what they can do, but we only get to see them doing anything once – and in that scene a whole bunch of them are killed off by the evil Parallax, which sort of undermines everything we’re told.
Oh, that reminds me, about that Parallax bit, that
is easily one of the biggest, gravest errors the scriptwriters could
possibly make. Back in 1994, when DC published the abominable Zero
Hour, Hal Jordan was originally turned into a role with that name.
Later on, Johns undid this by making Parallax a separate entity, but
that doesn’t make the whole monstrosity any less embarrassing. The
screenplay by at least four writers (and Geoff Johns, who served as
a co-producer, could easily make a fifth if he had any influence
over the scripting) is based on one of the Secret Origins specials
Johns wrote, and I’d say drawing their “inspiration” from one of his
works not only reeks of a form of editorial mandate, it’s
practically cheap. Going for something brand new when there’s a
whole lot of older, better stories out there they could surely get
some great ideas from, that’s pretty weak and unchallenging. And
they definitely shouldn’t have used Johns’ ideas for a movie story.“Green Lantern” is so CGI dependent it’s a wonder someone bothered to lug a camera onto the set. Reynolds flexes his appealing blend of arrogance and heart to play the title character, but there’s little super about this hero.
That’s another serious problem with movies of this
sort, one that I first came to notice after I watched movies as
cruddy as the Matrix and the Mummy in 1999 (I haven’t seen the
sequels, nor do I intend to). They’re just so smothered in special
effects, there’s no room for real human drama anymore. Whereas
comics today destroy themselves with cheap stunts and crossovers
(and if they do supposedly offer “good” writing, it’s in entirely
dishonest ways), the movies will do it with special effects that
sweep over the screen like a tidal wave.To all people who are not fans of a comic book. Don’t review the movies or if you do read the comic before approaching it. Quite frankly I’m tired of reading misinformed critics who don’t bother to read source material before seeing the film.
If you have to be familiar with the source material to enjoy the adaptation, then that adaptation is a failure as anything other than fan service. If it’s not possible to make an adaptation that can stand alone, then it probably shouldn’t be made in the first place (unless you can make it cheap enough that you can get by on the fanboy market alone).
Which describes
another problem with the movie perfectly: the writers went miles out
of their way to make it something that comics readers would
otherwise be the only ones to comprehend, certainly those left. That
could explain why they went out of their way to feature nearly every
GL Corps member ever seen, with the possible exception of Katma Tui.Ryan Reynolds is all surface as Hal Jordan, the reckless test pilot recruited by the intergalactic Green Lantern Corps to protect the world from evil, in this case the many-tentacled Parallax, a former Lantern who went power-mad. Adapting the DC Comics franchise are four credited screenwriters who, besides deserving no credit, falsely indicate that Hal is the first human Lantern. Huh? Back in 1940, artist Martin Nodell and writer Bill Finger created the first one as railway engineer Alan Scott. Hal didn't show up on the page till 1959.
The green ring allows Hal Jordan to conjure up anything he can think of, but what's frustrating is that much of what the filmmakers dream up for Hal to conjure are items that are just silly. Hal saves dozens of lives - including Carol's - by turning a crashing helicopter into a race car and spinning it around on a race track. And because it's just downright ridiculous, one of the film's big action scenes is squandered and what could have been a powerful, dynamic demonstration of Hal's new powers turns into something akin to a childish-looking prank.
I think the way
Hal rescues Carol here is actually by generating some kind of a pool
from green energy, whereas the father of Hector Hammond is the one
who needs saving from a falling helicopter. But there is a good
point made that they turned the whole scene into an absurd, dismal
joke by taking it far beyond supposedly good intentions. And good
grief, wouldn’t sending the copter for a spin on a race track run
the danger of landing Hammond’s senator father in the hospital, if
not in the graveyard, and maybe make him feel worse than he did when
the copter was about to crash? Hey, if I went through such an
experience, I’d emerge feeling very angry, assuming I even survived.
In fact, I hesitate to think of what would happen if I fell into a
“pool” of energy; I’d probably suffocate to death! What’s worse,
drowning or asphyxiation?