Once again we found ourselves on a random Tuesday with nothing to do. What was our failsafe? A random movie. This time the only option we could see was Green Lantern. None of us were that excited for this movie. It hadn't been getting great reviews and we questioned the CGI suit. Why couldn't he just have a normal suit? It shouldn't be that hard to actually make one, but I digress. The thing I was looking forward to was seeing how the supporting cast did in their roles. I love Geoffrey Rush (Captain Barbosa in Pirates), Michael Clarke Duncan (Giant Black Guy in the Green Mile) and Mark Strong (Lord Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes).
As the movie starts you see some foolish aliens on an uncharted planet. While there they manage to release an unspeakable evil and gets their souls sucked out for good measure. The scene then shifts and we see Ryan Reynolds in his quintessential role, a very muscley slacker playboy that never takes life too seriously but that has a good heart. He is a test pilot and he likes to go beyond what many consider to be the limits.
As he is doing his pilot thing the great evil of Parallax is out and about in the universe sucking up souls. It runs into this purple Green Lantern alien who happened to be the one that locked the evil up in the first place. In their scuffle the purple guy is mortally wounded so he challenges his ring to find someone to take his spot as a Green Lantern. It so happens that the ring chooses Hal Jordan (Reynolds) as the new Green Lantern. Quick aside here I have heard a lot of complaints saying that the Green Lantern is black. Not true people, the original Lantern Alan Scott was white. The series was revived not that long after with Hal Jordan, another white dude. Later John Stewart was given a crack at being a lantern backup to Hal and this time he was black. I guess I can understand the mix up a little since the Green Lantern seen in the Justice League is John. I just wanted it put out there that DC Comics is not racist for having a white Green Lantern. They could be for other things but not for their Lantern views.
Ok back to the story. Hal has the ring and he starts to train. He doesn't think he is worthy because he feels fear so he decides to abandon his training. Sinestro decides he is going to take some Lanterns and attack Parallax. It doesn't work at all. He comes back thoroughly defeated and claims they need to make a yellow fear ring to fight Parallax with his own power. While this is happening Hal reconsiders his quitting with the help of his hot lady friend Carol (Blake Lively).
Hal learns he can master his fear which is what the Green Lanterns apparently needed all along. All in all the movie was decent but it jumped from scene to scene often times without the proper set up. Also I love Ryan Reynolds but I cannot take him seriously for the life of me. When he is quoting his Green Lantern oath I couldn't help but chuckle even though it is supposed to be a serious moment.
*SPOILER*
During the credits there is a brief scene where Sinestro is seen putting on the Yellow Fear ring. We jokingly mentioned that he would be called the Yellow Candelabra because of the funky design on the ring. In that spirit we all picked colors and light sources. Danny loves green so he was just a normal green lantern. I became the Purple Maglite, Ricky became the Black Zippo and Coombsy was forced into the role of the Blue Dart. Since I am such a thorough person I decided to check and see if I could find pictures of different colored rings. As it turns out DC universe was way ahead of us and rings of the whole color spectrum already exist with their different powers and emotional sources. Man did that make me feel sheepish. Turns out by choosing purple I am an effing Star Sapphire and I am powered by love. Coombsy is powered by hope and Ricky fittingly is an important dead person brought to life by Nekron and the Black Hand to fight the other Lanterns and fulfill the Blackest Night Prophecy.
I hope you all feel like you learned something and have a little more nerd in you because I surely do.
Rating 3 stars
PS A certain lady when she heard the rating I was going to give exclaimed "But I loved the movie, Ryan Reynolds is so hot!" I will let you all know here and now that we don't rate our movies based on the amount of Ryan Reynolds's skin we see. We don't even let the attractive ladies affect our ratings (see Sucker Punch)
PS A certain lady when she heard the rating I was going to give exclaimed "But I loved the movie, Ryan Reynolds is so hot!" I will let you all know here and now that we don't rate our movies based on the amount of Ryan Reynolds's skin we see. We don't even let the attractive ladies affect our ratings (see Sucker Punch)
