Green Lantern: The Early Reviews Are Bad. Really Bad.

Box office shows good start.

Saw it last night. DUG IT. Actually liked it better than Thor (3D was actually worth it in my opinion more than Thor's 3D)

Okay. Saw the midnight showing.

It wasn't bad. And it's nowhere NEAR a 20-something percent on Rotten Tomatoes bad.

No, it's NOT "The Dark Knight Returns".
But, as far as being a decent superhero flick, it's fine, though it's playing a little on the Dangerously Genre Savvy side.

Visually, the film still has the "Hey look! CGI BACKGROUND!" compositing problem. But most of the time there's enough action going on that it distracts the eye away from it. Most egregious were the Oa shots.

As for acting, it was okay. As I've said, not DKR, but hey. Reynolds needs some acting lessons though. He's like Keanu Reeves, except his "thing" is "Smug Snarker" instead of "old stoneface".

The story itself could have used a little tightening here and there and the first fight scene with Hector Hammond could have been pruned a LOT. But it conveyed just about everything it needed to. Both for hardcore GL'ers and for people who've been dragged into the movie by the aforementioned.

Was it worth $10? Well, I dunno. Had a raincheck from Thor that I used. Still, had that not worked (some shows don't accept rainchecks opening weekend), I still would have paid for the ticket, even knowing what I know now.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

I heard a breif, spoiler free review on the radio today. The reveiwer is a self proclaimed GL fan, new tons of trivia and history of the comic. While he thouroughly enjoyed it, he provided some interesting insight as to why he thinks the early reviews are so poor.

For him, the film is a fun, popcorn, summer action flick and not in by any means, high art. He clearly recognized quite a few problems with the film, as far with regards to some editing issues, story / plot issues, but said these things are quite common in many other typical summer action movies. He did state he thought the actors all did well in their roles.

The reason he believes the views are so poor is that other super hero themed movies have set up greater expectations for critics and perhaps even the audience at large. Movies like the last two Batman and Iron Man films in particular have raised the bar as to what a well done super hero film can look like. So when people see summer blockbuster super hero film announced, they tend to measure them against the bar of those other really good movies.

Over all he recommended people go see it for the fun of it, not to expect a great film, but one that is just fun like any other action flick.

From what I have been told this movie is better than the last DC Hero movie they released over Father's Day Weekend, which was last year's dud Jonah Hex, my review of that film (a film I was hoping would be good) shows what a pile of trash it was.

What I am hearing is Green Lantern has great special effects. Great Special Effects looks great in 3D but does not grab you. It is slow at times and the Sinestro & Hal time is too brief to start to establish the famous relationship between the two. The Master going evil and the Student Rebelling is not the theme but Parallax... which I am hearing hurts the film.

No I am not saying high art, but DC just does not seem to grasp the idea of how to make movies of their characters. Nolan/Batman is perfect but the rest... well lets not discuss it shall we?

The master going evil and the student rebelling, in my opinion, is the perfect set-up for the second movie. If we had Sinestro turn bad immediately after being introduced to him, we wouldn't feel the sense of betrayal from Hal and the Corps that such a turn deserves. As it is, the movie has enough clues toward that development for foreshadowing purposes and laying the groundwork, and it ends with Hal having earned Sinestro's respect.

I do have to wonder if Martin Campbell was really the best choice of director for GL, but he still does an admirable enough job. I hope the next movie, assuming there is one, will nix Earth-based elements almost entirely and have it all set in space and on alien worlds like Korugar.

just got back from the theater seeing this, and i have to say that i liked it a lot, yes it wasnt perfect because i felt it was rushed in parts, and not as much action as i would have hoped but overall fairly good, i would give it a 7/10 as it was definitely better than some other superhero movies

I saw it. I liked it. As has been stated, not the best out there, but Rotten Tomatoes really is off on the 20%, which just goes to show imo that critics really do have a tendency to just repeat what another one says.

I do see wasted potential though! DC should take a clue from Marvel and link their movies. Which they could still do, but it would mean GL is the first super hero and not Superman.

It wouldn't have needed much either. A news report playing in the background and they'd have had it.

My father told me this a while ago......I will make my own opinion after watching the movie and not before......

It exceeded my low expectations. Thought it was a decent flick. Nothing groundbreaking, but I can understand why the mainstream reviews have been bad. It's steeped pretty heavily in Geoff Johnsian lore and he even co-produced it. Very comic booky and definitely flawed, but still thought it was okay and none of the CGI or costume effects were as bad as I thought they were going to be based on stills and trailers.

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.

^^ Foamerang said it just about exactly right, coming from me as another GL fan. The only other big thing is that the film really shows that it had 4 writers. There are sections that just abruptly end, and there's a particularly rough few minutes where literally nothing makes sense, and it felt like the scenes were just out of order somehow. My other big beef is:


SPOILERS!!!!



About 50% of the movie is Hector Hammond: The Movie, guest starring Hal Jordan. There's all this talking and exposition and buildup to Hector being a big-headed creep (and he's a creep, not a threat in any way). Then his big moment comes, after all this buildup, and he fails and dies. There was no big resolution, no big... anything. SO much time was spent on Hector, to NO major outcome. He had NO impact on the story whatsoever. [His fight scene in the DEO lab is the segment I mentioned skipping around. Hal shows up-- how? He doesn't know this is going on. Hector is... blinded? Then Hal is talking to Carol, then we see Hector in bed being told to fight Hal. Suddenly, Hal goes to Oa and asks permission to do exactly what he was doing and ends up going right back where he was. WTF?]

I, as a fan, am not nerdraging, nor am I upset by this movie. I had low expectations, and I got more than I thought I would. It's better on dvd, where you can skip over the bad parts and just have 45 minutes of alien fighting.

Having not watched this movie yet....thinking of waiting til netflix gets it....

From a GL fan, one would think that they would have spent more time on Hal Jordan being a test pilot and how and why he became a GL in the first place and then focused on him on OA being guided/taught by Sinestro and then at the end of the movie have a tease of Sinestro turning on Jordan and the Corp...thus setting up a sequel and possible trilogy.... At this point to the unintiated there is no need to do the whole "Hector Hammond/Parallax" thing....just explain the guys origin.....I mean if you wanted to do some sort of space opera that ended up being the whole Corp Wars thing then fine.....however the first couple of movies should have a limited focus.........

Am I wrong for thinking the above???

The film had some problems. Entire scenes seemed missing, some too short. I'm guessing it's due to the excessive CGI scenes drove the cost of the movie up. It really needed another 15 to 25 minutes to smooth out the flow.

Scenes that felt out of place. The birthday party. The bar fight.

They needed a better way to established Hector's crush on Carol as well as how they all knew each other. It was somewhat obvious with Hal and Carol.

Why did Sinestro turn?

While Thor also had some CGI environments, it did have a lot of physical sets as well where GL had few. Basically only when Sinestro and Hal were on screen together.

It's not Airbender bad. Thankfully few movies are but I think it's closer to Metacritic's score than Rotten Tomatoes.

Ok, I saw it. And I liked it. That out of the way, there are things to be said about it.
First, the buzz on it is bad. X-Men has nothing to worry about.
Hal Jordan is a bit of good looking fluff who only does one thing in his life well. And that is fly. And even that is tainted by the memory of his Father's flaming death right before his young eyes. He feels that the ring chose incorrectly because the stated criteria is fearlessness. And he knows that he is filled with doubts, insecurities and fears. The lady in his life encourages him. By showing him that it is not that he has to be reckless enough to be fearless, but courageous enough to overcome those fears.
Ironically, with the possible exception of Ryan Reynolds himself, the casting/acting is spot on, especially as it applies to the guy playing Sinestro.
The one glaring plot flaw that really irked me. Is that The Guardians of the universe are supposed to be one of the oldest and wisest and most powerful of the sentient races. One of their own members approached the yellow orb of fear to better understand and control it's power, and was overwhelmed. He became Paralax. Who goes on to decimate a host of Lanterns. And yet when a Lantern (Sinestro) suggests that a yellow ring be made, they agree instantly! Huh? Run that by me again...
But it still was a lot of fun. And it doesn't take itself too seriously. Go see it and enjoy. But take my advise, don't waste your money on the 3D version. It adds nothing.

As I said in the other thread, ignore the critics and just go enjoy a great, fun film