Green Lantern

Several billion years ago, a race of immortals armed themselves with the most powerful force in existence: the emerald energy of willpower. Just as hallucinatory and incomprehensible as Flash Gordon in its day. Whether this is good or bad, I am not sure; in any case, guilty pleasure par excellence. (11/07/2011)

This is a pretty underrated comic book movie. Yet Green Lantern has everything it should have: Fantastic visuals and top-notch special effects (on a level more bombastic than Thor, Iron Man and others), an excellent, likable and above all funny main character, action scenes, of which there are not many, but when it comes to them (major training with rocks, swords, a motorbike, rotary machine gun...), one tends to stare, Newton Howard's precisely paced soundtrack... etc. In addition to this, however, Green Lantern is also very unlucky. In competition with the more popular Marvel films, it feels like their stepbrother that no one really wants to play with (Forman's Valmont went through a battle like this with Dangerous Liaisons back in the day, and yet it's not a bad film either). And that's a great pity. The only criticism I can make of it is the slightly overstuffed plot, which shows how much the filmmakers were counting on a sequel, in which the supporting characters (and perhaps the hundreds of amazing alien Lanterns) would now get the proper space they need, and in which a proper villain would appear (hold on until halfway through the credits). I'd take the second film now. Four pure stars.__P.S. Hearing a "fish alien" speak in Geoffrey Rush's voice is a treat.__P.P.S. For the first time since Avatar, I didn't find 3D unnecessary in a feature film (Parallax’s attack!) .__P.P.P.S. I wonder how many sage, disgruntled smarties saw Green Lantern in the movie theatre, and how many at home on a 15x20 cm screen. (08/22/2011)

This comic book madness is guaranteed to be appreciated by the fans the original comic book. The film doesn’t pull its punches, and during its uncompromising 109 minutes it presents a story that goes against all usual comic book adaptation characteristics. It’s just science fiction about superheroes from outer space fighting for Mother Earth outside of Earth. I have to say that it had its charm, but it was off to a rather slow start. Ryan Reynolds was great, but he could hasten the transformation and not wait for it until the middle of the film. Anyhow, I can’t say that I wasn’t captivated, as this was something else than you’d expect and that also counts for something. (12/24/2012)

Nice effects are everywhere these days. And so we get an accumulation of bland films that are nice to look at but evoke almost no emotion. Apart from a bunch of gimmicks, there was nothing to get me into the plot. Blake Lively is beautiful and Ryan Reynolds is quite likable. Except that I knew that before I saw it. Where are the days when I was rooting for the main character and couldn't tear myself away from the screen? Now I'm just watching him phone it in to see what he looks like doing it. A weak 2.5 stars. (12/08/2011)

At first glance, everything is as it should be. Ryan is a likable guy, Blake is every straight man's wet dream who isn't blind, the special effects team has been paid generously for their overtime, and proven hitmaker Martin Campbell manages it all. Yet only half of it works. No, more like a third because that's about how much the "civilian" world takes off the whole. The section in which the lanterns glow green tries to cloak the boundless naivety in a cheap pomposity that probably comes from the comic books, but it struck me as a cheap carnival ride that (hand on heart) looks pretty stupid. It's not boring and it keeps on flashing, and someone is always jabbering (quite often humorously), but it lacks that drop of soulfulness. This was the worst comic book film six months before Thor. (10/12/2011)