The Green Lantern: Blu Ray Review
The Green Lantern
Rating: M
Released by Warner Bros
So another superhero franchise looks to take flight.
This time, it's the turn of the Green Lantern to try and sprinkle
box office magic and ensure a future for the series.
Ryan Reynolds is cock sure pilot Hal Jordan, who despite his plucky
exterior and all American clean cut image, is scarred by daddy
issues, having seen his pops blown to pieces when a flight went
wrong.
Jordan finds himself chosen by a green light one day (I know - bear
with me) after an alien from the Green Lantern corp - a sort of
green wearing space police - finds himself dying on the
earth.
You see, the corp is trying to fight Parallax, an entity so evil it
intends to wipe out the universe and take vengeance on the Green
Lanterns, threatening the balance of power and tipping it in evil's
favour
The Green Lantern is an FX heavy slightly off kilter attempt at
launching the franchise. It lacks a real emotional centre and has
some completely absurd dialogue thrown in for good measure.
Apparently, green is the universal colour for will and yellow is
the universal colour for fear. So now you know.
And yet, it's not the massive failure you may expect having seen
the very underwhelming trailer; Reynolds is very watchable as Hal
and brings a level of performance which is engaging and believable;
similarly for his role as Sinestro, Strong (one of the best
character actors around) brings the gravitas to the mentor. Blake
Lively continues her ascent from Gossip Girl, playing a ball
busting pilot and business woman and Taika Waititi cracks a few
lines here and there as Jordan's engineer friend.
But the problem with the Green Lantern lies with the evil side of
the story; Peter Sarsgaard's Hector Hammond, who's Jordan's nemesis
and infected by Parallax early on, seems to simply become the
equivalent of Frankenstein's monster as he lumbers around the
screen, howling and becoming the Jekyll character. Sure there are
jealousy and daddy issues for him to deal with, but it's a one note
performance from Sarsgaard which doesn't deliver by any stretch of
the imagination.
All in all, I don't think The Green Lantern has enough to really
stand out in the superhero crowd; it lacks the grittiness of a
Batman, the everyman appeal of a Superman and the fun offered up by
this year's Thor.
Rating: 4/10
