Green Means Go…to Another Movie

The Green Lantern is a superhero that I wasn’t familiar with other than the costume and the logo. I knew noting of the story going in, so I got to learn the origin fresh and have no idea how faithful this movie is to the comics. Basically, it’s the story of Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), a wannabe Maverick from Top Gun. He costs the company he works for billions by crashing a $100+ million fighter jet, losing a government robot fighter jet contract. This is done while he flirts with the daughter of the owner, played by Blake Lively, who looks as hot as I’ve ever seen a woman look in a movie while keeping her clothes on. They play up an angle about how he is thought of as being fearless, but really he has “courage”, which they define as the ability to overcome fear.

Meanwhile, they give the back story for the entire universe, which in a nutshell is that some immortal creepy looking aliens who hang out on top of some giant pillars guard the universe, and split it up into 3600 segments, each to be guarded by a Green Lantern, who uses the power of will to fight the power of fear. They made a bunch of costume jewelry that is imbued with the power of will (which is the color green), then somehow these rings go out and choose the most fearless alien in every sector who is charged with its defense. How this happens has something to do with what seems to be the comic book equivalent of a green bathysphere that sucks someone up and transports them light years across the universe to the world where the immortals reside. It turns out that one of the immortals decided to use the power of pure fear (the color yellow), it corrupted him, and he got locked up in a planet in the “lost sector”. He is known as Parallax.

Still following? Because all of that took about 2 minutes of screen time, which is pretty quick to show you exactly how the entire universe came to be the way it is. Fear not, creationists, nothing in this movie discusses how the universe was created, just how it is governed, so your crazy theory isn’t contradicted by DC comics.

As I’m sure you can imagine, Parallax escapes his imprisonment through a process that mimics what happens when the Ark of the Covenant is opened in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He goes on to wreak havoc across the universe, destroying some planets, taking the form of a giant space squid. The graphics are OK, but nothing special- if your movie is predicated on having amazing visuals because the story is dumb, then they’d better be amazing. X-men pulled this off, but Green Lantern didn’t look much more impressive than what my Xbox 360 puts out.

At this time an alien Green Lantern dies, and his ring selects Hal Jordan to be a replacement. But since this is in the DC Universe, which contains Batman, I’m not sure why it picked Hal, because Batman has no fear, and he’s already a superhero. He seems like a much more logical choice. Maybe Batman was off trying to dispose of a bomb.

A guy who looks like a balding old Luke Perry is called in to do an alien autopsy, and he gets infected by some fear that was floating around in his system, and essentially becomes the vessel for Parallax here on Earth.

Hal gets some training from the main Green Lanterns, which would have been better had it been a montage with Eye of the Tiger playing, followed by him hugging Carl Weathers on the beach with them both in short shorts. What’s that? That’s been done in Rocky 3 already? Oh, never mind. Following this training Hal makes his debut as the Green Lantern, with a half mask fooling everyone and perfectly hiding his identity. Much like Superman’s glasses, this mask must really confuse anyone who sees him.

The head Green Lantern has a Clark Gable mustache and Vulcan ears. It’s a brave choice to try to bring back that mustache. Michael Jordan has been trying, but really, it’s not a good look. I’ll refer to this character as Purple Hitler, since I can’t remember what the hell his name was anyway and he gave a rousing speech followed by a bunch of lanterns raising their hand in the air.

Purple Hitler takes a bunch of lanterns to fight Parallax, gets them all killed, and decides that they need to fight fear with fear. Hal Jordan shows up and demands help to save the Earth, but is refused by the immortals and Purple Hitler. He goes back home to prep for his impending fight against Parallax.

Parallax shows up in San Diego, which I’m sure will make Comic-Con nerds chub up at their recognition of the skyline, and starts to fight Hal. They go into space, and Hal eventually uses his courage and a tidbit from his training to force Parallax into the sun. Before this I had no idea that a fusion reaction was the best way to get rid of fear. Purple Hitler and the trainers show up to save Hal from also ending up in the sun, and he gets to go home to make out with Blake Lively.

What my plot summary is lacking is the sense of boredom and insult to the viewers intelligence that comes with watching the actual movie. I think we have a new front runner for the Golden Razzies.

The only reason to watch this movie is to see Blake Lively looking exceptionally hot. In every other way, it’s terrible.

This movie I will rate on a scale of the shades of the color green, from Mint Cream to Myrtle. This movie is a very light Tea Green, and that’s just for Blake Lively’s eye candy.