Drctd by: Martin Campbell; Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively; Wrttn by: Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim, Michael Goldenberg
Released: June 17th, 2011 (USA)
Runtime: 114 min.
Rating: PG-13
Synopsis: A test pilot is granted a mystical green ring that bestows him with otherworldly powers, as well as membership into an intergalactic squadron tasked with keeping peace within the universe.
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I'll be reviewing The Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal, Buried) and Blake Lively (The Town, Accepted) directed by Martin Campbell (Edge of Darkness, Goldeneye) which is based on the DC comic book hero, The Green Lantern, in case you were unaware of that. I love Ryan Reynolds, but I don't love the Green Lantern comic book hero. So, I'm torn on whether I was going to enjoy the movie before I even saw it. The outcome?
I ended up liking it, best movie of the year? I currently hope not, it was good, but not great. There are a lot of minors characters you forget quickly. Anyways, the opening starts with 3 aliens getting stuck on a planet and fall into a pit? I dunno, poor maintenance on Planet Untitled. They have their alien souls taken out of them, in full skeletal form, by the evil Parallax. Now the Green Lanterns are screwed because Parallax (Clancy Brown) is yellow, which is fear, which is the weakness of a common Green Lantern. He finds purpleish/pink Green Lantern, Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison), and attacks him, leaving him with a fatal wound, also. Abin Sur was talking to Thaal Sinestro (Mark Strong) when he was attacked, interrupting the call, little rude if you ask me. Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is seen being a airplane pilot and is testing out two new fighter jets that are controlled via controller with his buddy, fighting partner, Carol Ferris (Blake Lively). Hal, being our main character, basically flips off the planes, sacrifices his partner in order to kill the two planes. That does not work and giving your partner up is a big no-no in the plane flying community. So, Hal does the best thing to redeem himself for it, he flies as far up as his plane will go to stall his plane and the fighter drones. He successfully takes down the drones! He is home free, oh wait, except for when you stall, your plane controls stiffen up. Now he has to get out of this jam, but he suddenly has a flashback to when he was a kid and his dad, played by Jon Tenney, goes out to test a new plane, and doesn't get far as the plane crashes. He is okay though he is standing up, explosion. Oh, trauma that we'll never be referenced to again, so sad. So, Hal is pretty much screwed and jumps out of the plane, causing it to crash.
They don't cost much anyways. Hal is given a stern warning and is almost fired, but Carol saves him cause they are buddies. Tear to my eye. Now Hal is going to some birthday party, I guess his kid? I dunno it is never referenced again. Cutting back over to Abin Sur, so he got into an escape pod, ready to die, and basically has his ring go choose the next Green Lantern to succeed him. Now back to Hal, he is leaving, but gets sucked up by a green ball! No one sees this apparently even though the birthday party household was just right next to it, whatever. Hal is carried all the way over to Abin Sur's crashed spacecraft and there he tells Hal of the ring and the Lantern, Hal is confused the entire time. Abin dies and Hal becomes a Green Lantern (sorta). Hal does the next best thing when you're standing next to a dead body and crashed spacecraft in the open, calls his friend Thomas Kalmaku (Taika Waititi) who is a engineer for Ferris Aircraft. Oh man, pointless talk about alien and what not. Helicopters in the background, they hurry to Thomas' jeep and drive away safely. Jordan goes home to try the Oath and says different pledges, we all laugh. Suddenly his eyes go blueish and he says the Green Lantern Oath word for word. Hal then follows that up by going to a bar with Carol Ferris and they talk about flying and what not, I think he dances with her, I don't remember, but anyways. Hal leaves the bar when, uh-oh, three goons who were laid off from Ferris Aircraft attack him. Hal kicks some ass, but gets kicked harder. When they think he is done, Hal grabs a fistful of, I think, nails from a truck, but that is the hand with the ring! He gets up and a giant green fist slams all 3 of the men into different directions. Hal is then taken away to the Green Lantern Corps home planet to get ready for training.
To make a long story short, he sucks at training and quits, but he keeps the ring and lantern for whatever reason, seems like a bad idea by the Corps, but whatever. Meanwhile on Earth, the feds got the alien body and got Dr. Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) to inspect it, but when he places his finger inside of Abin's body, something injects this yellow food dye into his finger. He now has the ability to read minds apparently and is also a teacher, so one day he is giving a lecture about bacteria and how they do something or another. One of his students starts to think bad thinks about Hammond, calling him mean names, and Hammond promptly, with his mind, throws the student, Michael, across the room. That's a method of teaching I could get behind. The scenes by the way get really awkward and the story seems like it was edited and put together by a 10-year old. Weird transitions to say the least. So, let's jump cut to the final encounter in the movie.
Parallax is taking the souls of people on Earth after an encounter with Hal which saw Dr. Hammond (one of my favorite characters in the movie) get his soul sucked out and dies. Parallax takes some souls of humans, but is stopped when Green Lantern Hal Jordan ruins his day. Using a lesson taught to him by Thaal that the sun's gravity is a bitch when you fly and "the heavier you are, the faster you burn." Well Parallax is pretty damn big, so Hal leads Parallax to the sun, and there we see the death of Parallax as he burns, but now Jordan is getting sucked in, oh the sad. Luckily Sinestro and friends saves Hal, bringing him to the Green Lantern planet and they all cheer. Hal gets the girl, Carol, and the movie ends ever so peacefully...OR DOES IT?!
There is a bonus scene after the credits, stick around to see it, sets up for a possible sequel. Why at the end of the movie after the credits? I'll never know.
Ruling: 3/5
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