Green But Not WIth Envy

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this movie. Super-hero movies lately have been about 50/50. The look of the CGI outfit in the pictures was questionable. And while I love Ryan Reynolds, his usual comedic nature didn’t seem to fit that of Hal Jordan. I met up with a couple friends and went into the theatre without any real high hopes.

The best part of the movie: Ryan Reynolds in his underwear… twice!

The worst part of the movie: The explanation that Parallax is one of the Guardians corrupted by the yellow energy of fear.

Best guest appearance: Bzzt

Hal Jordan is a goofball loser for the most part. While he had his downfalls in the comics, he wasn’t as bad as portrayed in the movie. One cute note to things was that Carol’s pilot name was “Sapphire”, an homage to her being Star Sapphire. Then you find out how Abin Sur captured Parallax (not yet revealed to be a Guardian of the Universe) and trapped him in a planet instead of the Guardians trapping him in the Central Power Battery. Parallax escapes eventually and makes his way around the universe killing and gaining power. He tracks down Abin Sur and kills him causing him to crash on Earth where the ring grabs Hal Jordon and dumps him into a big puddle near the space craft. (Gotta go for the prat fall. Can’t make it serious at all.) Hal gets his ring and an exceptionally cheesy looking power battery. It actually looks like some plastic kid’s toy you’d buy for $9.99 at best. Eventually, after some really stupid playing around with the battery, Hal activates it and learns the Green Lantern oath. For the most part, it seems like it’s all about goofy situations and jokes with this version of Green Lantern.

Eventually, Hal makes it to Oa where the first Green Lantern he meets is Tomar Re who, other than being a little thin, looks pretty true to form. Kilowog looks decent ut appears to have a bad 5 o’clock shadow which I wasn’t impressed with. I did love hearing him say “poozer” though. Sinestro is his usual high and mighty self, disapproving of Hal taking over Abin Sur’s ring at first. Along with the afore mentioned Bzzt, I also saw what appeared to be Stel. There may have been others I missed in there among the generic GLs. Sinestro suggests using the power of fear to defeat Parallax and a ring is made but Hal shows up and convinced everyone that this is a bad ideas and that he will single handedly take on Parallax even though he just got his ring.

Back on Earth, Hector Hammond gets his mental powers from Parallax energy in Abin Sur’s blood, turning him evil. A much thinner than usual Amanda Waller also appears. (The look she had, she actually reminded me more of Vixen.) Eventually Hector gets his bigger head though he looks more deformed than just having an enlarged head. He doesn’t survive the movie though as Parallax is quite disappointed with his. After killing Hector and a bunch of random people, Hal lures Parallax to the sun where Hal knocks him into it, destroying Parallax. After all, an immortal being of immense power who is hyped up on even more power is going to burn up after just getting close to the Sun. *sigh* Then Hal passes out and floats into the Sun, only to be saved by Green Lanterns who just happen to show up after the fight just finished.

And make sure to stick through the credits for one of the cooler parts of the movie as Sinestro goes and gets the yellow power ring after all and puts it in, becoming the first of the Sinestro Corps. (Try to ignore the fact that the texture pattern of his costume throughout the movie looks like it was made for Spider-Man though.)

Overall, despite all the discrepancies (which after X-Men: First Class seem quite minor), it wasn’t too bad a movie. The CGI costume wasn’t quite as bad as soon in the pictures and the green flame effects being the Green Lantern symbol were actually pretty cool. Carol recognizing Hal as GL and then explaining that it was because she’d known him so long and not seeing his cheek bones is not enough to disguise him was a fun point and quite realistic. The ring construct effects were done quire well and the ring looked good even if the battery didn’t. If they can tone down the goofiness, a sequel with Sinestro as we know him now would be a lot of fun. The movie is definitely worth a look.