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In the world of comic books, Marvel and DC have had a long and competitive rivalry. However, when it comes to films, Marvel has dominated of late. While Stan Lee and co. can boast of the X-Men, Spiderman and Avengers films, Batman has been the only real franchise DC has developed in the last ten years or so. With Green Lantern they have the opportunity to change that.
The film tells the story of the Green Lantern Corps, a group of ring-bearing, intergalactic peace-keepers based on the Planet Oa. When one of their most feared enemies, Parallax, escapes his planetary prison, he hunts down Akin Sur, the luminescent pink member of the Green Lanterns who imprisoned him, and kills him. Before he dies, Akin Sur crash-lands on earth and tasks his super-powered ring with a finding a successor.
The successor is Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), who sees himself as a rather unworthy choice. He’s a reckless test pilot with a messy family life and an even messier love life – the serial womaniser still harbours feelings for fellow test pilot and boss’s daughter Carol Ferris (Blake Lively). Hal must prove to himself and his fellow Green Lanterns that he, as the first human ring-bearer, is worthy of the honour and has the strength necessary to help defeat Parallax, the biggest threat the Lanterns have faced.
This is mostly established before the film even hits the half hour mark, as it flits sporadically between a range of scenes and settings. Amongst them is a flashback to the death of Hal’s father and a scene of Hal’s strained relationship with his family- both of which are too hammy and brusquely handled to generate any emotional resonance. The whole film suffers from trying to pack too much into its 114 minutes, with these scenes characteristic of the segues and sequences that weigh it down.
Another major flaw is the film’s villains. Too often we are dragged away from Hal’s story to focus on scientist Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard). After the government has him perform an autopsy on Akin Sur’s body, Hammond is infected with some of Parallax’s DNA. Soon the infection turns Hammond evil – with the added side-effect of making his head balloon to twice its size. For such a two-dimensional character (creepy, unappreciated scientist with woman troubles), Hammond is afforded too much screen time.
Parallax himself, meanwhile, looks like the head of one of the Mars Attacks! aliens floating in a cloud of faecal matter. Not good. Much has been made of the visuals in such a CGI-laden film and they prove to be hit-and-miss. The scenes in which Hal is dragged around earth in a green bubble look shoddy, as CGI and reality don’t blend well, but Planet Oa is so unashamedly artificial that it manages to be more immersive.
Also to the film’s credit is the fact that it never takes itself too seriously, as Reynolds manages to raise a few laughs by alluding to the ridiculousness of everything. Reynolds’ overall performance is perfectly fine- he does the best with what little he is given- with his best moments shared with Lively, as the two have good chemistry.
These occasional glimpses of quality served only to heighten my sense of disappointment. Whilst some of the set-pieces are perfectly watchable and the opening history of the Lanterns is suitably interesting, the script is nowhere near tight enough and the film quickly does downhill. Thor showed how well a more fantastical hero story can be told – and how well it can be received. Sadly, Green Lantern failed to follow in Marvel’s footsteps, as this looks to be an opportunity missed for DC.
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