CaptainFoamerang

After seeing previews for this I became convinced that maybe Noah Wyle should have been cast as Rick in The Walking Dead instead.

In hindsight I'm glad they didn't cast Nathan Fillion for this movie, because at least with Ryan Reynolds you got a sense they had a baseline for the way they wanted to write Hal's character and they had a selling point through the main actor; if it had been Nathan Fillion I'm sure they wouldn't have marketed it as heavily, would have been lost as far as the tone they were shooting for, and probably would have felt even less pressure to put out some quality work in other aspects of the movie.

I couldn't help but think this as I rewatched Knight and Day and thought back to RED, as both movies were fairly quiet in terms of marketing yet received high marks from audience members and were overall very entertaining movies. I have to assume that the involvement of Tom Cruise and Bruce Willis, respectively, had something to do with the creative team behind those movies wanting to step up their game and create something that they could be proud of even though it may not receive a lot of exposure.

Or maybe those guys just do a better job of picking their movies. /em shrugs

Know what would be sweet? If they came out with a poster of the survivors all done up as zombies the way they did on one of the comic covers.

I don't really like Ruffalo so I was hoping they'd at least give someone I do like and who has a more passing resemblance to Norton the role, like Giovanni Ribisi, but then again, I'd cast that guy in anything.

Basically, the film could have been vastly improved if you swapped out Hector Hammond's scenes with Sinestro taking Hal out on a few "calls" as part of his GL training and the creative team stopped everyone once in a while and asked themselves whether they were letting Hal cross the line between cocky and dorky.

And it would have helped if you got the sense that any of the creative forces involved felt they were putting their best effort forward and looking to some of the best examples of the genre as something to aspire to instead of something to dismiss as a possible goal.

He kinda reminds me of Brando's Jor-El in that shot.

I think Hellboy deserves a spot in the top 10 because it's a pretty well-rounded superhero movie that has action, fun, darkness, good effects, and a sense of epicness that some writers and directors don't bring across for these kind of characters.

For those of you wanting a review from a Green Lantern fan, here I go:

The film was okay. But just okay. After seeing it, you have to wonder when you're handling an intellectual property revolving around creativity and imagination, why wasn't more of that injected into the project? Was the director just not up to properly conveying just how large-scale this movie could be? Should have they have just threw a bunch of money at Geoff Johns to write the movie instead of getting a bunch of guys together to see if they could imitate what he's done to make Green Lantern so popular over the last several years? Did they not have to budget to do what they should have, which was to break from the superhero staple of a love interest and set this movie almost entirely in space as Hal learns to sling the green?

I'm sure the answers to these questions are known to some already or will come out following the film's release, but for whatever reason, I find it hard to imagine a GL fan would say this movie lives up to its potential. Here are some of the reasons why the film missed the mark:

• Blake Lively was positively wooden save for maybe one scene.
• Hal's time exploring the capabilities of the ring and training on Oa was too brief.
• There's no memorable musical score to go along with the character.
• The CGI of organic creatures was off and felt sub-standard, as if whichever company behind it didn't really take pride in their work.
• The relationship between Hal and Sinestro isn't explored enough, and overall Sinestro wasn't given enough screentime, certainly not enough to demonstrate his motivations for doing what he does in the stinger.
• The action was a bit too brief and the big bad is defeated too easily.
• There were no stand-outs acting-wise.
• There's no real personal beef between the main villain and Hal, so there's little emotional weight to their fight.

It's certainly disappointing if you're a GL fan and if you realize how much better it could have been if they'd gone a different way with it or gotten the money and creative team to take pride in the movie rather than simply throw a DC superhero movie out there just to show they're making an effort (albeit minimal) in the comic book big screen battle.

Glad to see that after giving the subject some thought, I'm not the only one who felt Kick-*** and Hellboy deserved to be in the Top 10.

I'd probably do it more like this:

10. Kick-***
9. Hellboy
8. Blade
7. Batman Begins
6. Superman
5. Iron Man
4. X-Men 2
3. Spider-Man 2
2. The Dark Knight
1. The Incredibles

Then again, I can't remember seeing The Rocketeer or the Timmverse Batman films.

Hopefully they do this right. HP is built for an MMO.