Movie Review: Green Lantern (2011)

Green Lantern directed by Martin Campbell

The Green Lantern Corps is a set of intergalactic heroes created by the Guardians, an immortal group that was once in conflict with the entity Parallax, a tentacled alien that feeds on fear. The Guardians established the Corps using the power of will to fight against the entity. One of the corps members, Abin Sur, imprisoned Parallax in a forbidden sector of space. All this is told in voiceover. The next scene shows some aliens who have crashed on Parallax's prison and who have given him enough fear energy to break free from the prison. Parallax then heads across the universe gaining power as it terrorizes intelligent beings it comes across. It eventually finds Abin Sur and mortally wounds him, though Abin Sur escapes in a pod that goes to the nearest inhabited planet.

The story then jumps to Earth where maerick Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is a test pilot at Ferris Aircraft. He and Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) fly some fighter planes against some drone planes the company is trying to sell to the government. The drones have proven hard to beat but Jordan breaks the rules of engagement in order to win against them, sacrificing Carol in the process (though as a test case she isn't really killed). His plane goes out of control and he has a flashback to when his dad, who was also a pilot, died in a plane crash. Hal manages to eject before his fighter crashes, which costs the company a lot of money. Also, it puts the government contract in jeopardy, so his actions are doubly annoying to Ferris, who is the daughter of the company owner and about to take a hand in managing the company. While this is going on, the alien escape pod crashes on Earth and Abin Sur sends his ring out to find a new Green Lantern to take his place. The ring snatches Hal from his apartment and he gets a quick speech from Abin Sur about being a Green Lantern. Hal returns home and has trouble getting the ring to work, even with help from the computer nerd (Taika Waititi) at Ferris Aircraft.

When he gets the ring to work, he is swept off to Oa, the planet that's the home base of the Green Lantern Corps. He goes through the fastest training ever and is disparaged by Sinestro (Mark Strong), a Green Lantern who was friends with Abin Sur and seems to be a leader among the Lanterns (though the Guardians are in charge). Sinestro wants to take the fight to Parallax. The Guardians reluctantly agree. Hal returns to Earth after he sort-of quits. 

Meanwhile on Earth, Abin Sur's body is being autopsied by Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) who is the son of the senator (Tim Robbins) who is negotiating the Ferris contract. Hector is infected by some of Parallax's yellow energy that's still inside the alien corpse and he starts to mutate. He's friends with Hal and Carol, though his romantic inclinations toward her have always taken a backseat to Hal's charm and bravura. He winds up as an agent of Parallax, who is coming to Earth on his way to Oa, where Parallax plans to wipe out the Lantern Corps.

That's just the setup of the movie. It's a bit convoluted and the film repeats a bunch of exposition about the Lantern Corps (the opening voiceover and during Hal's training). Sinestro's role is unclear--is he the head Lantern or just headstrong? The training montage is the worst superhero training ever put on screen. The other Lanterns hardly explain what they are doing or how to use the ring effectively. No wonder Hal quits, though even that is only explained later when he's back on Earth. He then is forced into being a hero as Hector start being a villain and Parallax shows up. That plot doesn't flow well at all.

Reynolds does his best with the script. He has the charisma but not the drive and determination that the character of Hal Jordan needs. The training sequence could have established that but it's too rushed and too incoherent, like they used it as an excuse to show off a bunch of other alien Green Lanterns rather than advance the character or story. When he finally gets around to manning up, he still seems immature and unconvincing. The other actors are okay but they are also short-changed by the scripts.

The effects are impressive for the most part. The energy constructs are fun if not terribly imaginative. Sometimes the energy force looks odd, like when the Green Lanterns fly through space or they are getting enveloped by green lightening before something is about to happen. Parallax's face looks a little bit too muppety to be taken seriously as a villain.

Not recommended, though this isn't as bad as its reputation as the worst superhero film.