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

Yep, because I thought it was a well done part. I don't just look at RT in terms of reviews. Metacritic averages out the score critics gives them so it tends to be more accurate. Even then, I go to sites to see reviews from people who I do trust. Now, if at least three different sources are saying it's merely average, then I'm willing to bet I'm not going to be blown away by it and I can at best Netflix it.

And here's one of the sits I look at for reviews. This time they did two reviews of it since they knew one of their writers would be a better fit for a review, but couldn't do it until later. There is a link to the first review which openly rips it. The second just gives it a lukewarm review. I'm still waiting for a rather positive review from somebody I trust. The dude I worked with who posted about it on Facebook as being "one of the best comic book movies ever" doesn't count.

Link

They actually covered this in the comics. Batman works by causing fear more than willpower. Although he is worthy, there are others more worthy.

Incidentally, when forming the Fear Based Corps, a yellow ring does try to recruit Batman but he wills it off.

Whereas I don't, although I'm confident it won't be a stinker like GL. My concern is that it was scared away from the logical 4th of July opening weekend by the latest misbegotten Transformers movie and will now have that and the final Harry Potter in theaters ahead of it. The studios have definitely taken note of the under-performance of superhero movies this summer, and if Cap can't justify its comparatively modest $140M budget, then its sequel could find itself being shot for a mere eight figures, the way Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance did (and Marvel Studios is already developing a reputation for being cheap).

The other problem is that its mid-summer opening risks audience fatigue for long underwear movies. The big-budget superhero movie, Vaughn said in the interview I linked earlier, has “been mined to death and in some cases the quality control is not what it’s supposed to be. [...] I think we’ve kind of crossed the Rubicon with superhero films. I think [the opportunity to do one], it’s only going to be there two or three more times. Then, the genre is going to be dead for a while because the audience has just been pummeled too much.”

Taking this estimate at face value, that leaves Captain America, The Avengers, and Dark Knight Rises to convince audiences that superheroes are worth it as summer blockbusters. Then there's the question of Zack "the Hack" Snyder's Superman in December...

And then next year we have the new Spider-Man movie, with technology-based web shooters and sticky gloves/boots. Yeah, that one's going to suck hard. This is what happens when Hollywood mines a genre dry.

Or if they'd been conceived of as series from the start and shot concurrently like Lord of the Rings and Superman/Superman II.

I completely forgot about it - that's not very auspicious. Similarly, its budget has supposedly been slashed to less than a third of Sam Raimi's last one.

I like Hackman generally as well, but his Luthor just seemed "off." The situation was not helped by Ned Beatty constanting shouting, "Mr. LUU-THOOOR" while bumbling about, either.

There are a number of critics I will give some weight to, and Ebert is one of them, although when we disagree, it is usually pretty divergent. So I take their ratings under consideration, but I do not read the reviews (which are often loaded with spoilers regardless of the movie.)

I am surprised to hear about the $200 million price tag for Green Lantern. It was just not spent in the right places; this COULD have been a much better film with some minor tweaking.

And it needs more "fun." As I have said, I wanted to see good old CoH "Ice Slick" in green be one of GL's constructs. What GL construct do you think of as being one a GL movie just "HAS" to have in it?

I was hoping at least Hal would have knocked out Parallax with a boxing glove at the end but nope.

I don't see what the bad news is. To me bad news would be hearing that people are caving and paying those outrageous 3-D ticket prices.

yeah but Sam Raimi knows how to do more with less. (not to mention helping make Bruce Campbell's career"

Yeah, but Raimi's got nothing to do with that new Spiderman movie.

But it remains to be seen how The Amazing Spider-Man's director, Marc Webb, best known for (500) Days of Summer and lots and lots of music videos, will do with a superhero action flick. He does cost less than Sam Raimi, though.

Oh, and in the wake of Green Lantern's not-so-stellar release, someone has leaked Robert ("TV Funhouse") Smigel's 2006 draft of a version that was intended as a Jack Black comedy vehicle. To preserve the dignity of these forums, I won't link to it here, but here's an interview with him about the whole misconceived affair.

o.O Now he won't have the superpower to stick to walls, it'll be his gloves and boots? What the hell is that all about?

That could be the audience wisening up. Except for Avatar and How to Train Your Dragon, I haven't found any movie to be worth the 3D.

I am drowneded by your wordologisms!

This brings up a good point that's been stated before: there's something to be said for a lot of people either liking or disliking a movie. Not to say that groupthink is always right, but the old adage "where there's smoke there's fire" does come to mind. It's not like critics all get together and decide how to rate something. When you have people across the spectrum loving a movie like Dark Knight or hating a movie like Green Lantern, there's *something* going on there. It's not prudent to simply dismiss that reaction out of hand.

That said, I think Rotten Tomatoes is utterly useless. Whoever runs that site clearly spins the "fresh/rotten" meter based on whether they liked a movie. Superman Returns got a HUGELY inflated "fresh" rating despite many of the reviews essentially saying it was bad. When SR came out and people were quoting the RT number, I looked at the reviews and found the RT icon erroneously applied. I think a fairer assessment would significantly downgrade the RT rating of such movies.

Of course, the only way to ensure a real cross-critic rating is to standardize the system. Personally, I think only pass/fail ratings should be accepted, but we do have a tendency to rank things. Siskel & Ebert were really onto something with the "thumbs up" thing -- although it led to hilarious phrases like "thumbs way up!" which sometimes evoke peculiar images.

It shouldn't be the beginning of the end. It's just an over-saturated summer with sub-standard fare. Jon Favreau commented last year that summer 2011 was going to be a bloodbath, and he's right so far. Sadly, Hollywood (in the collective sense) never gets the right message. When Jaws was a huge hit, Hollywood saw this movie with engaging characters, terrific cinematography, superb acting, direction and scoring and didn't think, "Let's make good movies with those elements," they thought, "Let's make movies about angry fish eating people."

They're already moving toward adult comedies en masse, which means endless Hangover and Bridesmaids clones for the next 5 years.

Wisening

English

Verb

1. Present participle of wisen.

wisen (third-person singular simple present wisens, present participle wisening, simple past and past participle wisened)

1. To become wiser.

I usually find Metacritic is a bit better when it comes to rating flicks. But, in regards to GL, i heard the only critic i needed to before i saw the movie. Another GL fanboy, he said it was good. Generally enough for me, but then i would've seen it if it was crap anyway.

I am baffled how any honest critic or person could give this movie a good review unless they were just so happy to see a GL movie that they got in the theater and virtually blacked out and made up their own movie...

Ok, I'll put it in simple terms then.

I enjoyed it.

Simple as that. It's a movie, that I went to see because I wanted to be entertained. It entertained me. Job done.

I'd happily go to see it again, I'll happily pay to own it when it gets released and I've already sent numerous friends off to see it, all of whom have come back and said they enjoyed it.

Job done

Why did you enjoy it? How was it enjoyable?

don't get me wrong here, there are some things in the movie that are good but the vast majority of the 100 minute movie was bad in multiple ways

I would articulate it this way:

There were a lot of GL constructs I wanted to see that I did not. The ones I saw were not as good as what I wanted, but they were still enjoyable.

I visualize Hal Jordan's personality in a certain way. What was depicted was not up to my standard, but it was not an overall negative, and some of it I enjoyed.

The Green Lantern Oath was treated with respect, and indeed, was shown very well the second time around.

Sinestro was done well, although I wanted more.

I think it comes down to this: it could have and should have been better, but the things that went wrong took it in the direction of mediocrity, not a stinkfest. They got a lot right, and they did not take a noble hero and remake him into the image of either Tim Burton's psychopathic murderer or the Batman TV show, for which I am very grateful.

I was not expecting Casablanca, so I got reasonable enjoyment out of the good elements in the movie. I left the theater feeling good, so thumbs up. I cannot say that about some other super hero movies.