Green Lantern's Not Shining Bright, but Not Completely Dim

My fiance is a huge Green Lantern fan. Huge. Outside of just reading comics, he owns two Green Lantern hats, one Green Lantern shirt, and a denim jacket that I stitched the Lantern logo onto the back of. He and I have watched each of the animated Green Lantern stories. He would have a Green Lantern ring of his own if he didn't have a chronic case anti-jewelry-itis.

Part of a comic I drew for him for Christmas. Seriously. He's that into it.

So when he and I heard they were making a Green Lantern movie, we were understandably excited. Seeing a fan trailer for it starring one of our favorite actors didn't hurt, either:

Alas, it was not to be. We knew it wasn't a real trailer, but it got us both jazzed about the possibility of an awesome film. Unlike many other superhero stories, Green Lantern really dances along the line between traditional superhero and traditional science fiction. Hollywood can make awesome science fiction movies, so why not an awesome sci-fi superhero flick?

Then Ryan Reynolds was cast. Not a terrible choice, but we weren't expecting a great performance out of him. Then pictures of the goofy-ass costume came out. Then the first trailer hit. Oh boy. With questionable CGI and costumes that looked bizarrely painted-on, I was worried.

It's like Zorro decided to start LARP'ing as a wood elf.

We saw the film together, decked out in Green Lantern gear, and I was half-expecting to duck out of there at the end of the film, hiding behind the brim of my hat, ashamed to be seen in a fandom associated with that crappy film (If Avatar: The Last Airbender's movie could do that to me, Green Lantern certainly could. Thank goodness I didn't buy any merch for that movie before it came out. Yeesh.)

And then it happened. The movie didn't suck.

It wasn't a miraculous piece of film making, but it wasn't terrible. The story was easy to follow and they covered most of the basics. There were definite weaknesses, but it wasn't a travesty. Reynolds didn't play the smarmy jack ass I expected out of him, but he didn't turn Hal into a cardboard cut out with no personality.

If anything, I think the movie had some serious editing issues. The decision to use Parallax created a lead into making the Yellow ring for the next film. The changes they made to Hammond created an interesting parallel to Hal (both given powers by their contact with alien life, one for good and one for evil), though they did little with this parallel to make the characters foils of one another. They gave us a decent look at Oa and some of the other Lanterns who often play crucial roles in Hal's interactions with the Corps. But spending so much time on his friends and family, his love interest, his job situation, etc. made the film really bloated and made me wish I could have seen more of what makes Hal's story stand out from the others. Nearly every superhero movie focuses, at least in part, on the hero's love interest. They just didn't need that in this movie. There was so much interesting material to work with in the Corps - the politics of the Guardians, the mentor/antagonistic relationship between Hal and Sinestro, etc.

Over at pajiba, they make an interesting point about the editing of this film:

One thing I feel needs mentioning: this is not Martin Campbell’s cut of the film, but the studio’s. I live in New Orleans where it was shot, I read the shooting script, all of which was painstakingly filmed with intense research, and all of that was left on the cutting room floor — a sort of combination of what happened to Daredevil and Watchmen, respectively — character development sacrificed for CG, scenes made irrelevant by removing their setup. The movie in the theater starts with an explanation of mythos that is made redundant by the more natural, scripted questions from Hal when he gets the ring. Ten minutes of childhood Hal, Carol, and Hector that sets up Hal’s first ring construct is reduced to an awkwardly placed flashback in the middle of another scene. The training with the ring is almost completely excised except for one minor scene. Most appallingly, the ending completely deletes the fact that Kilowog, Sinestro, and Toma-Re arrive at the end and help Hal defeat Parallax. Not to mention Parallax was supposed to be a 3rd act reveal after we spend the film worried about Hammond going evil, not the main villain for the entire film. I sincerely hope we get a director’s cut or at least all the deleted scenes on the video release.

So, maybe a director's cut is in order. Would it be any better? It depends. If they leave in all of the content that it has in the final release but inject a ton of extra scenes, I think it may still feel bloated and out of place. The sequences with Parallax seemed very tacked on and disconnected from the rest of the film. Not only that, but the threat that Parallax poses against the galaxy seemed played down once they finally got to the big show-down. Placing in exclusively in the third act would increase the sense of danger he poses, rather than having him float around the galaxy while the Lanterns talk up how destructive he can be.

I would definitely be interested in what they cut from Killawog, Toma-Re and Sinestro. Some people think that there was too much Sinestro in this film, but I think there wasn't really enough. They hinted at it, but I feel like his relationship to Hal as a comerade is much more important in setting him up as a [SPOILERS] villain [/SPOILERS] than giving face time to his girl-back-home. I don't think that he needed much more screen time if they had used what time he was given more effectively. He's not all buddy-buddy with Hal, but if they're going off of Secret Origin (the comic that I believe they cited as inspiration) then Sinestro should be a bit more of a mentor, like the sensei who doesn't particularly like his pupil, but still aims to push him to be better.

This movie wasn't terrible and it definitely deserves a sequel rather than having to scrap it and start over.

If you want a better way to be introduced to the series, check out the animated Green Lantern: First Flight.

I finally got my Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordan in the follow up animated piece Green Lantern: Emerald Knights. It's also pretty awesome and will give you a lot of the history of the Corps without being a total exposition dump. I highly recommend it. Still, it's not a piece that focuses heavily on Hal specifically, so it doesn't really fulfill the desire to see Nathan take on the role.

One day, Fillion. One day.

Agree? Disagree? Then let me know. Leave a comment below. I don't claim my word as law. Keep it civil and I'm all up for discussion and debate.