New Release Movies: Green Lantern (2011)

Jables: Just looking at the movie poster you can almost tell what this movie is going to be like.  Ok let us have a quick look at the premise of the film.  Basically you have this super awesome corp of superhero aliens (round about 3,600 of them) and they use the power of "will" (which apparently is the colour green, go figure) and use this to fight all types of evil.  Anyway, this big bad guy named Parallax has turned up again after a very long time to do bad stuff.  So Tom Strong (pinky red guy on the poster) goes to the Jedi council and asks for help and stuff.  He takes a bunch of these super awesome superhero guys in green to the big bad and get their arses handed to them.




Meanwhile on Earth Ryan Reynolds is playing Ryan Reynolds in every movie he's in.  He's cocky, doesn't play by the rules and still manages to have a job and friends.  Anyway he gets chosen to be a Green Lantern for no real reason and goes and does a training montage with Michael Clark Duncan.  None of the other Green Lanterns want to be his friend so he decides to go back to Earth and goes back to being Ryan Reynolds.  Unfortunately the big bad rocks up and threatens Earth and Ryan Reynolds decides that he should do something about it.  He finds the only weakness the Big Bad has and beats him.  Surprise, surprise all the Green Lanterns love him now, especially Tom Strong.

Tom Strong, under used and shitty effects in one.

So basically we have the plot from almost every other comic book, superhero movie in here but with dudes in green wearing rings.  Does it matter that it's just the same old rubbish we've seen many times before?  Yeah it kinda does.  If you can actually guess what the ending of the movie is, almost scene for scene, halfway through the movie then yeah it's not the best.  Shit, Ryan Reynolds doesn't even really become Green Lantern until late in the film and by the time he does you are ready to turn it off.


What's the casting like?  Great on paper.  Tom Strong, Michael Clarke Duncan (voice), Tim Robbins, Geoffrey Rush (voice), Peter Sarsgaard and even Ryan Reynolds all seem like a great cast.  Unfortunately Strong, Duncan and Rush are under used.  Robbins and Sarsgaard's characters are completely pointless and Reynolds is just Reynolds.  Oh and Blake Lively is the eye candy in this flick and even she can't save it.

More shitty effects and eye candy.

Terrible writing and terrible effects also bring it down.  Boy are the "special" effects bad, from the disgusting Green Lantern costume on Reynolds to the stupidly looking will powered weapons.


So basically not even Tom Strong or Blake Lively can save this film.  The boring story and terrible effects are probably the biggest downfall of the movie.  3/10 is probably still being generous.

Probably the most shitty of shitty effects.

Quantom : My comrade and I decided to watch a film that fateful spring evening in October. We looked over the selections and saw "Green Lantern" standing out, bright as the emerald green so over-used in the film itself. There was a sick desire building in both of us, a curiosity that ate and ate and ate away until the words were spoken: "Let's see how bad this is, it could be funny!" These words ring in my ears, a constant reminder of what cannot be undone, of what cannot be unseen. 


Like Odysseus and Achilles, like two of the three Musketeers, like Sherlock and Watson, like Kane and Lynch before us, we ventured forth. We stood on the precipice, and dared to press play. We were ill-prepared for the storm that followed. A storm of nothingness, of something so uninteresting as to cause anger, agitation, sadness, emptiness. We sat, shuffling in our seats, scratching our faces, our bodies - itchy all of a sudden, why so itchy? - letting out groans and moans of boredom. I called out, "There is nothing happening, oh my god I'm so bored!" but found no respite. My comrade fidgeted, shaking his head, shivering. 

Michael Clarke Duncan alien and Ryan Reynolds.

The film had ensnared us. It bombarded our senses, rocked us to our very cores with its onslaught of terrible acting, cliche characters and the shittest special effects ever seen in a major studio production. "Why is the costume CG?" I cried, "you can see it wobble when he moves!" Ryan Reynolds imagined a cacophony of ridiculous and shitty looking green objects like race tracks and jets, assaulting us with ideas so dumb it left our faces frozen, blank, absent. Tim Robbins emerged, and for a moment there was a flicker of hope. "Tim Robbins, he was in The Shawshank Redemption! Maybe this will suck less?" This hope was shattered like a glass house with rocks thrown at it. Jables looked at me, the fear showing all too clearly in his eyes. He choked on the words as he said them, "Tim Robbins...is old and fat now..." I could only agree, and sunk my head into my hands. 

Tim Robbins... old and fat.

After what seemed another lifetime, the experience was over. We had ridden the storm to its end, surviving the crescendo of the film - the shittest ending scene this side of The Village. Now we sit and reflect, to tell our story, to let others know what has happened here...to warn them. The biggest indictment on this film is that I wish we never watched it. I wish I could cleave the memory from my mind, to go back to a time when I was blissfully ignorant of how much Green Lantern sucks arse. 


J: Am I Sherlock or Watson?  Oh and damn the Village sucked.

One more bit of shitty effects.