Contrary to all the bad reviews, Green Lantern is a very enjoyable movie. I was expecting something along the lines of Batman and Robin or Catwoman. Something just god awful. But this is a pretty good movie. I don't know what movie critics saw, but I saw an entertaining one. Yes, it had some faults but it was no train wreck as we were led to believe.
Ace test pilot Hal Jordan (played by the always reliable Ryan Reynolds) works for his on-again,off-again girlfriend Carol Ferris (a surprisingly effective Blake Lively) at her dad's company. Well his reckless stunt at the film's opening gets him into trouble and shows his relentless desire to push himself ever since his dad died in a aircraft failure years ago. Cut to outer space where a Green Lantern named Abin Sur comes under threat by the returning evil of Parallax, a force that feeds on fear. Badly wounded in battle Sur manages to make it to Earth and calls upon Jordan to take his ring and become a Green Lantern too.
And we're off and running. After Sur dies and the government confiscates his body and his ship,led by Amanda Waller (played by Angela Bassett), they call in scientist Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) to examine the body. Hammond gets infected by Parallax's residue and gains vast mental powers. He also becomes very unhinged.
In the meantime, Hal is whisked away to Oa, homeworld of The Green Lantern Corps where he gets a crash course in lantern training. To focus his mind and to be able to create constructs from nothing but his will. He meets resistance from Sinestro (superbly played by Mark Strong) who takes offense that the corps have accepted a human into their ranks.
After a bout of some soul searching, Hal returns home in full Green Lantern gear, looking very spiffy I might add and has to save the day at a celebration for Ferris Air. He gets to show off his new power and is very impressive.
Of course Hector sees him and immediately doesn't like it. Especially since both men are in love in Carol. And Parallax is headed for Earth to kill Jordan, who now has the ring of the one Lantern who imprisoned it long ago.
Things come to ahead with a cool battle between Hal and Parallax that starts on Earth and ends up near the sun.
I liked this movie. The special effects were amazing. And the cast was mostly effective with Strong and Lively being the best. Like I said earlier Lively is very convincing as the headstrong and very beautiful Carol and she deserves a lot of credit. Strong's performance of Sinestro evokes memories of Ian McKellan as Magneto from the X-Men films. Look for Sinestro to be front and center for the sequel. Reynolds was good too but he really didn't get to flex his muscle until the very end. But I'm sure he will be that much better by the time the sequel comes. The few things I didn't like was the weak film score, and the shortness of the film. It could have easily done with about a half hour more. Hal's training on Oa went by way too fast. So those are some minor things that can be fixed for the almost guaranteed sequel, which has a doozy of a setup at this film's ending.
So all in all, Green Lantern was very enjoyable. I still liked Thor and X-Men: First Class more but at least DC now has another hero in their movie stable other than Batman and Superman. Here's looking ahead to what should be a superior sequel ala X2.
B-
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