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Film Review: “Green Lantern”

Written by: FFT Webmaster | June 17th, 2011

** OUT OF 4

Director Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale”) is unable to save this cliché ridden, boring mess of a movie cobbled together from no fewer than four Hollywood screenwriters.  The story is weighted down with a lengthy dose of expository dialogue that serves as a set-up for a sequel but not as an appealing action- adventure film. The lead characters are based around a DC Comics series featuring an elite group of guardians of the universe named “Green Lanterns”.  Starring in this dull pretentiousness is the charismatic hunk Ryan Reynolds, whose character a test pilot, possessing all the wrong stuff, named Hal Jordan, lacks the gravitas to make us believe he is a super-hero. It’s not that Reynolds doesn’t look the part it’s just that the story is “connect –the-dots” artifice.

His boss, and ex fling, prior to becoming a “Lantern” is the drop-dead gorgeous eye candy Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) Their scenes of self deprecating humor are weak and turgid.  When the requisite arrival of aliens occurs Hal is bequeathed “a magic ring” which allows him to assume “super powers” and membership in this elite group of intergalactic crime fighters who appear to be stolen from an episode of “Star Wars”.  How many times must we be subjected to the mandatory training montage where our newly minted superman learns to master unearthly powers?  This time The Green Lantern is supposed to turn images from his mind into tactile objects made of “green light”.  The effect is one of the few pleasurable experiences in this otherwise inert film where Hal stands around in a green suit looking like he is in a TV sit-com.  The only compelling character in this certified disaster that provided pleasure was the villainous Hector Hammond, played by the wonderful Peter Sarsgaard, as a milquetoast   professor who the film’s antagonist called Parallax turns into a psychopath. Parallax is a tentacled mass of rapacious protoplasm that looks like it wants to eat all life forces in the universe. Its showdown with the Green Lantern, in which it loses, looks like an afterthought thrown in to bring closure to this costly and thoroughly disappointing spectacle. Lastly, the 3D which was added in post-production is needless and poorly done sucking the light out of many scenes of some trippy and expensive CGI.

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