Green Lantern

With Marvel Studios doing such a good job (so far) establishing several comic book-inspired movie franchises (Iron Man, Thor, and X-Men, with Captain America and The Avengers on their way soon), it only makes sense for DC Comics to try and launch some of their heroes onto the big screen.  With Christopher Nolan's Batman series wrapping up next year and the stalled attempt to reboot a Wonder Woman TV show, the pressure was on Green Lantern to be the first major DC property (that wasn't Superman or Batman) to have success as a feature film.  Is this movie up to the challenge?  Well, they say that Green Lanterns know no fear, but unfortunately, courage isn't all you need to make an entertaining movie.

Eons ago, a bunch of powerful and blue-skinned aliens who apparently named themselves the Guardians of the Universe (boy, they sound like a fun bunch) found a way to harness the green (not eco-, just the color) energy of willpower as a means to police the universe.  The power of will is given off by all creatures, collected by these Guardians and channeled into green power lanterns, which in turn power green rings, which enable the users to do just about anything they can think of.  The universe is divided into over three thousand sectors, with each sector getting one Green Lantern Corp member to patrol the several galaxies that make up each sector.  But all is not well in Lantern Town; an evil entity named Parallax (voiced by Clancy Brown), an ancient foe of the Corps, has escaped his Green Lantern-devised imprisonment.

Witness the face of the voice of fear!

Parallax feeds on the yellow power of fear, leaving nothing but burned out husks in his wake, and his number one priority is to punish Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison, best known as Jango Fett in the Star Wars prequels), the Green Lantern that imprisoned him.

Well, if he has his own movie poster, he must be pretty important, right?  Right...?

I would like to point out that we haven't spent any time on Earth just yet.  That's not a big deal, but it's still a little strange.  Abin Sur gets ambushed by Parallax, who looks like an amorphous yellow-black cloud, and is fatally wounded.  Instead of seeking out medical attention, Pinkie and his (talking) ring opt to find his successor before he dies.  Wait...he's in the movie for only a few minutes and still gets his own movie poster?  That's like giving Thomas and Martha Wayne their own poster for The Dark Knight!  Whatever, fine.  Abin Sur and the ring wind up on Earth, where the ring chooses brash pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) to be the next Green Lantern.  Now, you might assume that this is a fish-out-of-water story where Hal goes into space to fight the big scary yellow cloud and seems completely out of his depth.  That's true, to some extent.  But there is also an Earthbound story in this movie, too.

Not the only time he looks like a doofus in the movie, trust me.

Hal is an irresponsible man whore (okay, that's a judgement call from a scene that is eerily similar to one in Iron Man) who spends his time being snarky and finding ways to show off his ripped abs.  He and Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) totally don't get along at all because she is tired of his man-childish ways --- you had better believe that these two will not go from mutually antagonistic to deeply in love within the space of two hours.  Not a chance.  Hal's problem is that he is afraid of big decisions and falling short when he is compared to his late father.  Getting a super powerful ring doesn't make his life easier; the greater the responsibility, the more likely it seems that he won't measure up.  Hal's not the only character with daddy issues in the movie, though.  Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a fairly dorky scientist, grew up with Hal and Carol and knows that his bookish ways have always been a disappointment to his politician father (Tim Robbins).  Hector gets the chance to do the initial inspection of Abin Sur's alien body and he manages to get pricked by a piece of yellow Parallax bits stuck in Abin's wound, which leads to some slight side effects.

Mmmaybe you should get that checked out, Hector.

So, on the one hand, we have Hal, who feels unworthy of controlling the power of will because he's afraid of failing.  On the other hand, we have Hector, who is tired of being lame and suddenly can tap into the yellowy power of fear.  And don't forget about all the aliens!  This is a busy movie!

In the lead role, I thought Ryan Reynolds did a pretty good job as the cocky Hal Jordan.  He was pretty likable and occasionally funny; I enjoyed seeing his figure out his powers as the movie progressed.  I don't know if I would have cast Reynolds --- who is as sarcastic as ever in this movie --- as a death-defying man of iron will, but he works well with the script.  Blake Lively, though, was a bit of a mess as his romantic interest.  I understand that playing a superhero's girlfriend essentially makes you a damsel in distress, which is never a flattering showcase for acting, but damn.  In the words of my wife, a "two-by-four with a brunette wig" would have been more entertaining.  Her part wasn't very hard --- she had to look pretty (mission accomplished) and partake in just a little bit of witty banter (Least natural.  Laugh.  Ever.), with a moment to show the depth of her emotion (mission aborted).  I will give her credit for not screaming in this movie, which is shocking, given her role.  Peter Sarsgaard did a good job playing a snivelly scientist, but I would have liked to see him be less of a weenie on his own turf or when he started gaining his powers.  I didn't particularly like his character, though.  And for every opportunity Lively had to give a damsel scream, Sarsgaard delivered two anguished moans, which got old quickly.  As for the rest of the cast, I really liked Mark Strong as Sinestro, the most powerful Green Lantern; Strong did a great job with a character that could have come across as simply a dick.  Instead, he made the character seem driven and burdened with responsibility, which is more complexity than I expected to get out of any of the aliens in this cast.  I liked the other aliens Green Lanterns, too, especially the fish-like Tomar-Re (voiced by Geoffrey Rush, who also narrated) and Kilowog (voiced by Michael Clark Duncan).  I was a little disappointed that Clancy Brown's voice acting skills were under-utilized, but that was no big deal.  Rounding out the cast, Tim Robbins, Angela Bassett, and Jay O. Sanders all play boring character roles.

Geoffrey Rush, out of costume.

As in most movies, especially blockbusters, there were some strong performances and some weak ones in Green Lantern.  But acting was never going to be what truly decided how good this movie would be.  Director Martin Campbell's job was to make Hal Jordan into a cool hero.  He's done it well in the past (two Bond movies), so you would think that this would be second nature to him.  I believe that he gave his best effort, but was overcome by a few difficulties.  Campbell made a truly fantastic visual spectacular, and I thought the CGI looked great, without a single cheap-looking moment; this was a bright and shiny superhero movie, no doubt about it.  There were certainly parts of the movie I really enjoyed; I thought the scenes set in space were all pretty cool and Ryan Reynolds gave a likable performance.

"Likable" in a "Smell me" kind of way.

And yet, this movie falls tragically short of being cool.  What's wrong with this film?  To put it bluntly, the story is a bright green steaming pile of crap.  Let's look at the story choices first; I'm not talking about the plot, just the way the story was written.  There is no reason for there to be so much back story in a superhero movie, especially before the audience is given a glimpse of the main character.  Wouldn't it have been way cooler for the audience and Hal Jordan to discover the galactic majesty of the Green Lantern Corps together?  As a space opera, Green Lantern is pretty solid.  It's those pesky Earthlings that screw up the movie. I was seriously disappointed in the ways Hal used his power ring; if the fish-looking alien can do cool stuff with his, why does the human Green Lantern have such a limited imagination?  That ring can do anything, and he resorts to giant green fists and guns?  To be fair, though, that is a problem that definitely exists in the comic, too (check this article for more info).  I hated the obvious story parallels between Hector Hammond, Hal Jordan, and the development of their powers; that was a lazy plot device to point out that Hal is a hero because overcoming fear is good.  And I thought that the character that fed on the fear of others would end up being the sympathetic hero!  What an insulting theme.  Hector Hammond's character also had waaaaay too much screen time.  Hammond, in this movie, is a henchman of Parallax; we learn about his childhood, his family, his job, and his lust.  This guy is a glorified Odd Job and he has more development than the big villain, Parallax.  That's a problem.

But the problems don't end with the ideas behind the story, they definitely made it into the plot.  What is Parallax's evil plan?  To destroy the Guardians of the Universe and the Green Lantern Corps.  Well, after he kills Abin Sur, he then waits for a few days, until Hal Jordan has time to come to travel across the universe a few times, doubt himself, and ultimately come to grips with his new responsibility.  Apparently, Parallax had underwear gnome logic.

In his case, Phase 1 was killing Abin Sur, Phase 3 was Destroying the Corps, and Phase 2 is where this movie takes place.  That is far from the only instance of extreme pointlessness by a character in this movie.  Hal finally decides to grow a pair and fight the yellow cloud thing to protect the Earth, but he can't do it alone.  He travels to the Guardians and asks for help, but is refused any.  So, what does the guy who traveled across the universe to get help because he can't defeat his enemy alone do?  He asks permission to face his enemy alone.  What?!?  That's the stuff of headaches, my friends.  And at least Hal left his planet undefended with the yellow apocalypse on its way to make that scene happen.  **face palm**  Perhaps the most frustrating plot line involved Sinestro, who was a pretty cool character.  SPOILER ALERT: Sinestro decides to fight fire with fire and has the Guardians create a yellow ring to channel the power of fear in his fight against Parallax.  The ring is made, and is handed to Sinestro.  And he never uses it.  If this movie had to have two villains, I would have much preferred to see Sinestro as the tough drill sergeant-type antagonist, using the yellow ring and failing, corrupting himself in the process.  But nooooo, we needed Hector "Lumpy" Hammond to lurch his way across the screen.

Many possibilities, few actualized.

As much as this movie frustrated me, I have to admit that it was mediocre dumb fun (emphasis on the "dumb").  It looked gorgeous and had a few pretty cool characters, and lots of things went boom.  There were several moments where I was entertained, although most of them were not terribly relevant to the larger plot.  And it definitely could have been worse.  That doesn't mean that this ridiculously ill-conceived story is anything less than an enormous disappointment, both for fans of the comic and people looking to enjoy some cosmic-level movie fun.  Ultimately, this mess gets a disappointing

By the way, am I the only person who hated Hal Jordan's Green Lantern costume?  I was fine with the glowing stuff, but I thought the mask was awful and the choice to make it skintight was downright peculiar.  The ring presumably makes a suit to fit the personality of the wearer, right?  Well, how vain is Hal Jordan if he needs a costume that flaunts his butt and abdominal muscles at all times?  I get that Ryan Reynolds is an astonishing hunk, but that uniform was tighter than Catwoman's.

Edge of Darkness

Oh boy!  Looks like it's time for another aging man to take the law into his own hands when bad guys attack his family (see Death Wish, Taken, or Death Sentence for other examples).  Honestly, I am all about revenge as a plot device.  It leads to tough guys being bad-ass and bad guys getting hurt in creative ways.  What's not to like?  Oh, you want character development or subtlety?  Read a book.

Edge of Darkness is the American film version of the classic British television series of the same name.  Boston detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) has just brought his adult daughter (Bojana Novakovic) to his home, from the train station, when she gets sick.  They prepare to rush to the hospital, but when they are on the front stoop of Craven's home, a masked man shouts "Craven!" and shoots...but the daughter Craven gets hit instead of Thomas.  And boy, does she get hit!  Wow.  Yeah, it was a shotgun, but that scene was pretty brutal.  Obviously, the police (and Thomas) work under the assumption that the killer was aiming for Thomas and the daughter was an accidental hit.  At least, that was Craven's assumption, until he discovered that his daughter was radioactive.

Huh?  Radioactive?  Really?  Excuse me, how can radioactivity fit into my can't-miss revenge movie formula?  It can't?  Crap.

Yes, Craven's daughter was radioactive and that's why she was sick.  Now, I think we all know that you don't just accidentally get radiation poisoning (unless you're making the film adaptation of XXX-Ray Love: The Marie and Pierre Curie Story).  There's always some evil corporation and/or government behind it.  Such is the case here.  Jack Bennett (Danny Huston) is in charge of the evil corporation, which has strong ties to the government.  The ties are so strong, in fact, that they receive help from the government, in the form of CIA operative Darius Jedburgh (Ray Winstone).  Darius is the guy you send in to cover things up when you don't care how many bodies pile up, as long as the job gets done.

As soon as Craven realizes that his daughter was practically glowing in the dark, he stops acting as a police officer.  He takes evidence from her apartment and burns it, in case it incriminated her as an environmental activist.  Darius decides to pay Craven a visit at this time; he probably should kill Craven, especially since he's a detective that is clearly veering from the law.  This should be the end of the movie.  But, Darius likes the cut of Craven's jib, apparently, and encourages Craven to do whatever he has to do, by any means necessary.  The second half of the film has Craven doing just that.

I didn't think you could make a revenge movie overcomplicated, but director Martin Campbell made it happen.  I just don't understand it.  If this movie had just made the daughter an innocent victim, then Craven would have had to pummel his way through the undoubtedly enormous backlog of thugs that he sent to prison.  That would have been awesome.

Instead, he "detects" his way around and finds all the answers, nice and neat, relatively quickly and painlessly (aside from his daughter and a few other peripheral characters dying).  There is a convoluted cover-up in place, but he has little difficulty getting past it.  And I love that there is a corporation at fault, but Craven finds only one guy to blame.  And he's right!  There is only one person responsible for a radiation-tinged conspiracy.  Do you know how evil you have to be to pull that off?  Skeletor-level evil.  Let's just pretend that corporations occasionally have one evil master that murders innocents in outlandish ways and has the government's help in covering it all up.  If I accept that, I find it incredibly hard to swallow that nobody pulls a grassy knoll on Craven's noggin.

And another thing...who is Craven's boss, Mr. Burns?  Craven says that he's not taking a leave of absence after his daughter dies.  Fine.  He then stops by the police station one more time before ignoring it for the rest of the film.  The police even call him with updates on his daughter's case, but nobody calls and asks if he's running late, or maybe to ask if he's decided to take that leave?  I want that job, right now.  Minus the whole thing with my daughter's blood splatter-painting my front door.

This movie frustrates me because it has a lot of potential.  Martin Campbell is a good action director (he's directed two good Bond movies) and the cast is decent.  Mel Gibson hasn't made a movie in years, but he gets to be a tough guy, which is something he's always been good at.  Ray Winstone takes a role that could be played as disinterested or tired and gives his character some depth; he doesn't demand much of the spotlight, but I appreciated his performance.  The rest of the supporting cast is unspectacular, but not bad.  Jay O. Sanders is decent as Craven's cop buddy, Shawn Roberts does the best he can with a dumb character, and Bojana Novakovic looks somewhat pretty in her limited screen time.  I was majorly disappointed by Danny Huston as the evil corporate head.  It's not just that his character is one-dimensional, or that he would have been less ridiculous if he had tied Craven's daughter to railroad tracks to kill her.  My problem is that  Huston plays this unlikable character as completely unlikable.  There's no wicked charm, or smart remarks.  He's just a douche and you want him to die.

Even with the goofiness of the plot, this is still a decently entertaining movie.  Gibson and Winstone are in fine form, and they make up a good portion of the movie.  This definitely is an underwhelming return to the screen for Gibson, but it's far from his worst work.  It's too bad, really, given what this movie could have been.  Still, if you like seeing old men beat up and kill jerks, then this movie has something to offer.