Green Lantern (2011)

Walking into the Green Lantern almost completely cold, I came to the conclusion that some super heroes will never translate well into live action form. The Green Lanterns are a group of galactic space cops who patrol the galaxy and defend its inhabitants from danger. Their primary weapons are a green ring that allows its users to forge almost anything their imagination can conceive out of pure green energy. If this sounds like ridiculous concept out of pulpy 1940s sci-fi you would be right on the money

The most interesting super hero films are the ones that are able to ground themselves in a plausible reality. Films like X-men and Batman are interesting because while their characters have extraordinary abilities, they exist in a world that is much like our own, and the conflicts are grounded in a reality. In Green Lantern, our hero must use his “will” to defeat a giant yellow tentacle space alien that is the embodiment of “fear.” It is so completely out there that it lacks any sense of tension, or reality to get me invested. Of course, Green Lantern doesn’t really take itself too seriously. It is DC’s attempt at an Iron Man, and instead of wise cracking Robert Downey Jr. we have a wise cracking Ryan Reynolds as Hal

Jordan, a test pilot who is recruited into the lanterns after discovering the ring.
From here we get the usual sequence of super hero origin story. He learns to harness the power of the ring, overcome his fears, and takes on evil. Along the way he has to deal with love interest Blake Lively , in scenes that only serve to slow down the movie without adding much character depth.

The villain Hector Hammond (Peter Saarsgard) is a scientist infected by the alien menace. Aside from looking pretty creepy, he really doesn’t have much to do in this film aside from walk around brooding and scheming… to kill all the humans on Earth… or something. He is a far cry from Heath Ledger’s Joker or even Michael Fastbender’s Magneto from this summers X-Men: First Class.

The brightest spot of the film is the colorful visuals of the movie. The home world of the Green Lanterns looks great and is populated by a myriad of bizarre aliens. You get a Episode IV Mos Eisley Cantina vibe from these scenes.

I am sure there is much more to the character of The Green Lantern that doesn’t come across in the movie, but that’s why the movie failed. It doesn’t make the character interesting or appealing to someone who isn’t familiar with the comics