Green Lantern - CaH/VC reactions (Please preface with SPOILER if you're going to add SPOILERS)
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2011-06-17 24:30 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
I just saw it Monday afternoon and found it quite enjoyable. I liked the movie Hal Jordan a great deal, which is more than I can say for Hal as I've seen him in the comcs. He struck me as having all the good qualities of Hal minus that stick that seems to have been shoved up comic-Hal's backside. Maybe that's how Hal was before Coast City got destroyed?
Of course, I would have preferred an Alan Scott movie. I always liked the magical Green Lantern best. But still, I'd look forward to a sinister sequel if they made it.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
I'll keep it short.
I didn't like it. I get that some of you did, but it just wasn't for me.
Plus, I will admit that I set my expectations high. After the epics that were Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night, it's hard for anything GL related to wow me.
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Saw it Saturday with a date. I am a pretty big GL fan and she loves these types of movies (comicbook/action) in general. We both enjoyed it. It was entertaining and that is what we wanted.
I could nit pick a few things.... such as the real looking fire coming from the flamethrower construct, but hey.... whatever.
I too felt like there was too much story to shove into one film, so yes it was a little rushed. I would like to see Hal and Sinestro run a few missions together and bond a bit before we see Sinersto fall. And then blame Hal basically for it. Maybe they will next time. If there is one.
And Critis are idiots. They are too affraid to admit something is entertaining for fear their peers will ridicule them. You know secretly a few of them will be buying the DVD and put their plastic GL rings on.
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I still get the feeling none of them judged the movie on it's own merits, and instead judged it by comparing it to other superhero films.|
Originally Posted by Mr_Awesomeness
Saw it Saturday with a date. I am a pretty big GL fan and she loves these types of movies (comicbook/action) in general. We both enjoyed it. It was entertaining and that is what we wanted.
I could nit pick a few things.... such as the real looking fire coming from the flamethrower construct, but hey.... whatever. I too felt like there was too much story to shove into one film, so yes it was a little rushed. I would like to see Hal and Sinestro run a few missions together and bond a bit before we see Sinersto fall. And then blame Hal basically for it. Maybe they will next time. If there is one. And Critis are idiots. They are too affraid to admit something is entertaining for fear their peers will ridicule them. You know secretly a few of them will be buying the DVD and put their plastic GL rings on. |
"The Dark Knight was better, so the Green Latern sucks."
Not saying the people involved in movies shouldn't aim high and put their best foot foward, but instead of saying "It's good." they say "It sucks compared to this movie, so don't see it."
:/
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Quote:
The thing about that is, once you see something done right, it can be irksome when you see something similar put out there that you don't see done with the same kind of effort and overall quality.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
I still get the feeling none of them judged the movie on it's own merits, and instead judged it by comparing it to other superhero films.
"The Dark Knight was better, so the Green Latern sucks." Not saying the people involved in movies shouldn't aim high and put their best foot foward, but instead of saying "It's good." they say "It sucks compared to this movie, so don't see it." :/ |
It doesn't make it a undeniably bad film, but it can be so jarring when you notice things missing or unpolished that it hurts your experience with the film.
- CaptainFoamerang
Silverspar on Kelly Hu: A face that could melt paint off the wall *shivers*
Someone play my AE arc! "The Heart of Statesman" ID: 343405
Quote:
I don't think it's the lack of polish...I think it's the fact that it's an origin movie. Origin movies don't seem to balance showing the "this is how our hero came to be" with "Ok, now that they're ready to fight the problem in the present, let's let them do it" very often.|
Originally Posted by CaptainFoamerang
The thing about that is, once you see something done right, it can be irksome when you see something similar put out there that you don't see done with the same kind of effort and overall quality.
It doesn't make it a undeniably bad film, but it can be so jarring when you notice things missing or unpolished that it hurts your experience with the film. |
In GL's case, I think they went too far on the side of resolving the conflict. I agree that not enough time was spent on his training (and instead spent on him deciding whether he was worthy). I wanted more Kilowog, if anything. Even 5 more minutes of him training, explaining how the rings were made or what they can do besides project energy or put you in a nifty suit would have been enough.
I liked the movie a lot. I thought the story differences were small enough to not be jarring, and I thought all of the actors were fine. I don't think I would have written Sinestro as so accepting of Jordan after Hal's conversation with the Guardians (to me, Sinestro never accepts Hal as a worthy Guardian, especially wearing Abin Sur's ring. He appreciates his power only after fighting against him, but that comes much later in the canon).
I also think comic geeks need to ease up on their nerdrage over most comic movies. They accept storylines written by numerous writers that almost always diverge and conflict with each other, but they can't accept a movie plot that does? That makes no sense.
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.
Quote:
That's just it. Look at other genre of films.|
Originally Posted by CaptainFoamerang
The thing about that is, once you see something done right, it can be irksome when you see something similar put out there that you don't see done with the same kind of effort and overall quality.
It doesn't make it a undeniably bad film, but it can be so jarring when you notice things missing or unpolished that it hurts your experience with the film. |
You don't see "Well this comedy was better, so don't see this one. Oh also, because of that we're rating the movie so low as to give it reviews that say it's unwatchable."
I mean really...20% on Rotten Tomatoes...it wasn't anywhere near that bad of a film.
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Quote:
What? |
Originally Posted by BrandX
I still get the feeling none of them judged the movie on it's own merits, and instead judged it by comparing it to other superhero films.
"The Dark Knight was better, so the Green Latern sucks." Not saying the people involved in movies shouldn't aim high and put their best foot foward, but instead of saying "It's good." they say "It sucks compared to this movie, so don't see it." :/ |
All notions of good and bad are relative. The only way you can give something a fair criticism is by comparing it. We have standards. Those standards are set in place by the average quality or by the level of quality something should meet if one studied it. And further, standards are always going up due to technology and people competing with each other... or at least they should be.
The ones you have to be worried about is when someone says that you shouldn't compare. If something is good or right it should be able to stand up to scrutiny of any sort.
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If you're trying to say which is better...then yeah.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
The only way you can give something a fair criticism is by comparing it.
|
Otherwise...
/jranger
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Valid point.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
What?
All notions of good and bad are relative. The only way you can give something a fair criticism is by comparing it. We have standards. Those standards are set in place by the average quality or by the level of quality something should meet if one studied it. And further, standards are always going up due to technology and people competing with each other... or at least they should be. The ones you have to be worried about is when someone says that you shouldn't compare. If something is good or right it should be able to stand up to scrutiny of any sort. |
And watching GL, I just don't see the 20% rating as being anywhere near accurate with the film.
I'm not saying this was the best film or even best Superhero film.
It however, was nowhere near the travesty of a film that rating entails it to be.
20% is basically saying it's a 2 out 10 rating. At minimum it's a 5, and I'd more likely give it a 7.5.
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Quote:
i explained this...|
Originally Posted by BrandX
Valid point.
And watching GL, I just don't see the 20% rating as being anywhere near accurate with the film. I'm not saying this was the best film or even best Superhero film. It however, was nowhere near the travesty of a film that rating entails it to be. 20% is basically saying it's a 2 out 10 rating. At minimum it's a 5, and I'd more likely give it a 7.5. |
GL was bland and boring. It didn't make mistakes because it didn't try to do anything great. It played it safe and as such came out being average and dull.
Based on straight technicals it was a 5/10
But because movies that do play it safe are so bland and dull they are uninteresting and tie that with the disappointment factor and the score gets lower.
Where as a movie like Transformers 2 which a lot of people feels is one of the worst, if not the worst big budget movies ever gets a higher rating... not cuz its better in terms of technical craft but because the wreck is interesting as are almost all wrecks
The 20% comes from how RT amalgamates reviews on a simple good/bad review rating. So 20% means only 20% of the reviews were positive (actually it's up to 26% now, audience gave it a 58%).
Metacritic on the other hand averages the actual review ratings which is why GL has a 39 (a lot of 2 of 5 star reviews).
BoxOfficeGuru readers gave it a solid B.
I expect it to suffer this weekend due to Cars 2 drawing off the family movie goers and already flushed through the comic book fans.
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Quote:
No, RT doesn't average review ratings, they simply count good Vs bad and report what percentage are good. Good is at least a 3 out of 5 star rating. So the current 26% means 1/4 reviews were "good".|
Originally Posted by BrandX
Valid point.
And watching GL, I just don't see the 20% rating as being anywhere near accurate with the film. I'm not saying this was the best film or even best Superhero film. It however, was nowhere near the travesty of a film that rating entails it to be. 20% is basically saying it's a 2 out 10 rating. At minimum it's a 5, and I'd more likely give it a 7.5. |
Now Metacritic simply averages reviews. It has GL at 39% with the bulk of the reviews in the 2 of 5 stars category. If you applied RT's criteria to the reviews at Metacritic, 9 out of 39 reviews were good or 23%, very close to RT's number.
BoxOfficeMojo readers gave it a solid B.
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now I'm trying to remember where I read Cars 2 was actually disappointing for a Pixar movie...
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Just about everywhere.|
Originally Posted by Mr. DJ
now I'm trying to remember where I read Cars 2 was actually disappointing for a Pixar movie...
|
Problem is the original turned out to be a great kid's film that later raked in the merchandising money, even though it's plot was aimed squarely at adults. Add in the anti-NASCAR sentiment among a significant chunk of Americans and the original simply wasn't as popular with the usual adult Pixar fans.
Now there's a sequel and the story appears to be a simple action movie plot with none of the more serious tones from Pixar's other films coupled with the abundance of pre-merchandising (Cars shaped Purdue chicken nuggets for example) is putting reviewers off even more than the original.
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Quote:
I think that's the main difference between DC and Marvel comics.
|
Originally Posted by Mandu
And because Hal Jordan was a "super hero". He doubted himself but he pulled his act together and went out to be a hero. The First Class crew on the other hand was a hodgepodge of people who hated themselves, considered themselves freaks, and were depressed because they had abilities. They didn't doubt themselves, they just felt sorry for themselves.
So Green Lantern was entertaining to me because it was about a super hero. Not about some emo guy who just happened to have powers. |
Quote:
It certainly looked to lack polish to me as far as the CGI, directing, and writing were concerned.|
Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
I don't think it's the lack of polish...I think it's the fact that it's an origin movie. Origin movies don't seem to balance showing the "this is how our hero came to be" with "Ok, now that they're ready to fight the problem in the present, let's let them do it" very often.
In GL's case, I think they went too far on the side of resolving the conflict. I agree that not enough time was spent on his training (and instead spent on him deciding whether he was worthy). I wanted more Kilowog, if anything. Even 5 more minutes of him training, explaining how the rings were made or what they can do besides project energy or put you in a nifty suit would have been enough. I liked the movie a lot. I thought the story differences were small enough to not be jarring, and I thought all of the actors were fine. I don't think I would have written Sinestro as so accepting of Jordan after Hal's conversation with the Guardians (to me, Sinestro never accepts Hal as a worthy Guardian, especially wearing Abin Sur's ring. He appreciates his power only after fighting against him, but that comes much later in the canon). I also think comic geeks need to ease up on their nerdrage over most comic movies. They accept storylines written by numerous writers that almost always diverge and conflict with each other, but they can't accept a movie plot that does? That makes no sense. |
Again, the thing about the better comic book movies is that you can walk out of the theater with the satisfactory sense that people who cared about the source material worked on the movie, because it showed. This movie didn't leave me with that, but rather the feeling that everyone was just looking to churn out a superhero movie without putting any pride in their work.
I'm not going to berate folks who actually enjoyed the movie like another poster whose name you can't spell without "Dur," but what I'm saying is that any kind of movie usually entertains by stringing together a series of successful moments that carry you through it. With this movie, I felt there were too many moments strung together where it was obvious they could have done better, and that soured the experience.
- CaptainFoamerang
Silverspar on Kelly Hu: A face that could melt paint off the wall *shivers*
Someone play my AE arc! "The Heart of Statesman" ID: 343405
Quote:
Well I think in this case it's not so much a matter of saying, "this one isn't as good as [blank]," but rather "this one isn't very good." But that's just me.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
That's just it. Look at other genre of films.
You don't see "Well this comedy was better, so don't see this one. Oh also, because of that we're rating the movie so low as to give it reviews that say it's unwatchable." I mean really...20% on Rotten Tomatoes...it wasn't anywhere near that bad of a film. |
Again, I don't want them to reuse story elements, tones, or styles just because they were successful for other movies, I just want them to put their best effort into the ones they do use, and if I'm struggling to point out aspects of the film where I felt they did that, then I can't give an honest assessment that it was good.
- CaptainFoamerang
Silverspar on Kelly Hu: A face that could melt paint off the wall *shivers*
Someone play my AE arc! "The Heart of Statesman" ID: 343405
bah... when I read critics panning a film, I can almost always rest assured that I will enjoy the film. GL is no exception (and I suspect Cars2 will entertain me as well).
In fact I can't think of any film that violates that rule of mine.
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I had the same feeling you did. While this isn't the worst comic book movie ever (I'll leave Elektra, The Spirit and Jonah Hex to fight that one out with Howard the Duck), it really wasn't a good movie. For all the glitz that this movie should have had, it really left me completely underwhelmed.|
Originally Posted by CaptainFoamerang
It certainly looked to lack polish to me as far as the CGI, directing, and writing were concerned.
Again, the thing about the better comic book movies is that you can walk out of the theater with the satisfactory sense that people who cared about the source material worked on the movie, because it showed. This movie didn't leave me with that, but rather the feeling that everyone was just looking to churn out a superhero movie without putting any pride in their work. I'm not going to berate folks who actually enjoyed the movie like another poster whose name you can't spell without "Dur," but what I'm saying is that any kind of movie usually entertains by stringing together a series of successful moments that carry you through it. With this movie, I felt there were too many moments strung together where it was obvious they could have done better, and that soured the experience. |
At least Captain America looks like it's going to be solid, so I have that to look forward to.
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Battlefield Earth? I mean cm'on not even Scientologists could have liked that film.
|
Originally Posted by JetFlash
bah... when I read critics panning a film, I can almost always rest assured that I will enjoy the film. GL is no exception (and I suspect Cars2 will entertain me as well).
In fact I can't think of any film that violates that rule of mine. |
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Sorry, guilty pleasure.
|
Originally Posted by Innovator
Battlefield Earth? I mean cm'on not even Scientologists could have liked that film.
|
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And everything you just said here is YOUR opinion, which is why trying to compare one thing to another is impossible. You might think GL is worse than Thor, for example, but someone that thought Thor was garbage would disagree with you, and you'd both be right and wrong at the same time.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
i explained this...
GL was bland and boring. It didn't make mistakes because it didn't try to do anything great. It played it safe and as such came out being average and dull. Based on straight technicals it was a 5/10 But because movies that do play it safe are so bland and dull they are uninteresting and tie that with the disappointment factor and the score gets lower. Where as a movie like Transformers 2 which a lot of people feels is one of the worst, if not the worst big budget movies ever gets a higher rating... not cuz its better in terms of technical craft but because the wreck is interesting as are almost all wrecks |
The only way a comparison would work would be to compare two movies about the same character, like Tim Burton's Batman vs Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. At least you can say one director's interpretation of the source material was pulled off better than the other. Comparing Hal Jordan's movie portrayal to Superman's is dumb.
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.
Quote:
No. |
Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
And everything you just said here is YOUR opinion, which is why trying to compare one thing to another is impossible. You might think GL is worse than Thor, for example, but someone that thought Thor was garbage would disagree with you, and you'd both be right and wrong at the same time.
The only way a comparison would work would be to compare two movies about the same character, like Tim Burton's Batman vs Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. At least you can say one director's interpretation of the source material was pulled off better than the other. Comparing Hal Jordan's movie portrayal to Superman's is dumb. |
Thor is technically superior on every level.
You are mistaking Good in technical sense and Good in the sense that it is entertaining.
The former often what makes the latter so, but the latter can override the former for people and most people go off their personal likes and dislikes rather than whether something is good or not.
in other words, just because something is good doesn't mean i'm going to like it and just because i like it doesn't mean it's good.
There was only one post credit scene. Then at the very end of the credits there was an advertisement saying buy Green Lantern comics.
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