 |
Y U NO MAKE GOOD LIVE ACTION MOVIES!?!?!?!?
Ok so I’ve seen Thor, X-Men First Class and finally Green Lantern and I figure I might as well weigh in. I think the headline says it all but just in case WHY DC, WHY U DO THIS TO GREEN LANTERN! Be aware HUGE SPOILERS are coming.
Ok so it wasn’t complete train wreck, I mean it wasn’t Batman good, and it wasn’t Spider-Man 3 bad it just was. You never get a feel for any character, you don’t truly understand anyone’s attraction to one another sadly it missed the mark on all the things that have, as of late, made a great super-hero movie…character. From Iron Man to Thor we always get a sense of the lead character and why they are the way they are, but not in Green Lantern. Nope we have five different stories going on that don’t mesh, ever, and in fact don’t even know they are in the same movie, which does make sense seeing as there were FIVE writers!
So we have the following five stories:
1. Parallax (Villain 1)
2. Hal’s Origin (Green Lantern)
4. Carol Ferris (Love interest/romantic story)
5. Hector Hammond (Villain 2)
Hasn’t anyone learned that writing by committee never works? I mean obviously not. But there you go, was Green Lantern a wretched movie, no it was simply something to watch and forget about two seconds after you leave the theatre. And incidentally almost all of the DC Cartoon flicks have ONE writer and are exponentially better than any live action flick DC/Warner has put out.
Let’s go with I thought was done right, Sinestro (Mark Strong)! Yes the character with the least amount of screen time was done the best. From the moment you saw him he was a badass right until the bit in the closing credits when he dons the yellow ring. Mr. Strong either read comics or had the forethought to go read the Sinestro Corps War. Of course this was awesome from a comic geek standpoint; no one else understood the meaning of him putting on the yellow ring because you never get a sense of the “why”.
Honestly I don’t fault the actors for the lack of emotional impact for the viewers, though Blake Lively while nice to look at, sweet Jesus take some acting lessons! Anyway the people I blame for this lack luster film are the writers (all FIVE of them), director and suits who all too often concern themselves with merchandising rather than a decent story. Then need to cram as much crap as possible into a film always escapes me but I guess if you only had 3 action figures to make what’s the point right?
Ryan Reynolds was serviceable as Hal Jordan. I am sure right about now he is wishing he did Deadpool, at least Marvel knows how to make a live action film. Instead Mr. Reynolds will be known as the man who flat lined Green Lantern. I mean he did what he could with the words in front of him, and perhaps someone should have sat him down and made him watch Green Lantern First Flight (only ONE writer as a side note) so he would know who Jordan is. Hell they should have just made that live action and be done with it but sadly once again DC’s cartoon movies far outshine their live action films.
Now I keep reading how everyone wanted some Sci-Fi epic and I don’t agree with at all.
What I wanted was an origin story; Hal gets the ring from Abin Sur and has to figure out how to use and what the ring is out. Then at the same time face some enemy, non-cosmic, becoming the hero he always was. Once that threat is finished Sinestro and say three Alpha Lanterns show up and Sinestro says “Hal Jordan, NEW Green Lantern of Sector 2814, you WILL be trained!” Hal ends up in a green bubble and off they go. BOOM sequel set and you get a small taste of how Sinestro acts.
Then in the sequel we can see Sinestro and Hal become great friends, that way when Sinestro dons the yellow ring the betrayal hits even harder and makes sense, unlike the end credit teaser.
One question that eats at me all the time — why they hell do all the movie companies keep killing the villains! They NEVER die in the comics but hell we’ll slaughter them wholesale in movie so we can never get the great character moments of hero versus their nemesis. The whole point of the super-hero is the rouges gallery of villains and all that hatred and remorse that goes along with them! No we can’t have that just bring in more villains that always works right? Right? Spider-Man 3 I’m looking at you…in shame.
It could have been fantastic but DC/Warner Bros. will never learn the lesson of less is more. I mean how many characters are going to be in the next Batman flick? Well at least three that will need full backgrounds; Catwoman, Bane, Ra’s al Ghul, then you add Batman, Alfred and Commissioner Gordon and we get to six characters that need a good amount of screen time, sigh maybe they will surprise us. But I doubt it.
I can’t wait for Captain America! Marvel can’t make a cartoon to save its life but damn they OWN live action.
