I read the reviews for Green Lantern and felt sad that one of the movies I had waited near a lifetime to see was being slammed. Actually that’s me being kind of nice about it all. It has got royally slaughtered.
It took in hardly any cash at the box office – nowhere near the $200m it cost to make it.
As I watched the reviews trundle in and saw the box office receipts I got disheartened. As I waited for the launch in Australian (it was delayed by nearly two months here) I saw people on Twitter slamming it saying it was a poor movie, then I saw the people on the forum I use tearing into it. Sure there was a few people saying they enjoyed it but overall the results were ‘meh’ (which will mean something to someone in the forum if they read this).
As I waited for the release I spent some time reading old Green Lantern comics. Read some of the old classics (the oldest one I own is Number 28 from around 1962 or something like that) followed with some new ones including a dash of Kyle Raynor.
I even went to see Captain America, a movie which I don’t feel deserves its own blog posting because it’s kinda generic and bland and that’s about it. The characterization is ok and the build up is good but the rest is just ‘beat ‘em up, smash ‘em up and blow it up’ stuff.
And so the day came when I went to see Green Lantern.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect.
I like Ryan Reynolds. He’s been good in most movies and he can do serious and comedy. The rest of the cast looked good too but in the back of my mind was that nagging feeling that the movie was gonna be shit.
I was worried it would be like Superman Returns all over again.
I’ve never been happier to be wrong.
I thought it was excellent.
It tackled the core issue of the GL story which is fear v will. It tackled the romance between Hal and Carol. And it tackled the battle of a human thrown into an Intergalactic police force with a distinct view upon the universe.
Ryan Reynolds nailed it as Hal Jordan. He brought my childhood reading comics to life upon the screen and just blew me away. He got the arrogance and the willpower right there on the big screen. He really made it for me.
Sure the movie had faults but Hal Jordan was on the screen for those two hours I watched it and my younger self couldn’t have been happier.
Someday people expect too much from movies but this delivered on every level I wanted it to.
I got to see OA.
I got to see the Green Lanterns in action.
I got to see Hal Jordan using his imagination to full effect with the power of his ring.
I loved it…I really did.
I don’t want to spoil it but if you do go see it please ignore all the negative commentary around the movie and just sit back and have fun. Ignore all those damned comic book movies that take themselves too seriously and watch a real comic brought to life on the big screen.
kiltforhire 
This…. makes me happy *tears up*
I was so excited to see Green Lantern; I’m not a big comics fan, but news of the movie made me go back and learn more about the Green Lantern universe.
Then everyone starting ripping it to shreds. No one liked it, and my hopes were dashed. I was told not to waste my money going.
BUT… someone believes in it. That gives me hope; SO I WILL GO SEE IT.
(And hope for the best) 😀
I learned from Stevivor that’s it’s not my place to tell anyone *not* to enjoy a film (Lord knows I love a lot of films that are well and truly bad). I’ll admit that I thought the film well-acted throughout and the special FX were, for the most part, excellently done. I don’t expect or really want superhero films to take themselves seriously all the time (some characters do lend themselves to that take, though). But none of that, imho, change the fact that GL was a terribly written script, bordering on nonsensical.
The Green Lantern Movie: How *Not* to Plot a Story
http://tinyurl.com/44lutdo
The Green Lantern Movie: How *Not* to Write Characters
http://tinyurl.com/3sfojae
Hey mate, I’m pretty sure Green Lantern was an international release, not something that came out in the US two months ago. Just took a look at the Wikipedia entry and that seems to confirm it. Are you possibly confusing it with Green Hornet, which came out earlier in the year?
A couple of things:
1 – You could at least have talked about the movie rather than bringing up a point on release days
2 – Wikipedia is not the best place to check for all info. If you go here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1133985/releaseinfo it will tell you all the different release dates. UK and USA were both 16th/17th June and Australia was in August that’s two months by my count.
3 – I’m actually stunned you thought I would confuse Green Lantern with Green Hornet. That’s pretty fucking insulting.
For someone trying to lecture me, let me start by pointing out that three points isn’t ‘a couple’, but I can let that slide. Here are my actual points for you:
1. I’m not going to talk about the movie, because I haven’t seen it. The trailers made it obvious it was a pile of shite, from the get go. Plus, Green Lantern is a shit comic book character anyway.
2. Be insulted. It was a simple question. If you want to overreact to it, good luck to you.
Now /that/ was a couple.
Well you were the one claiming I was wrong when I wasn’t and you never mentioned you hadn’t seen it.
Good of you to admit your mistake…oh wait.
Hmmm.. what did you think of the Watchmen movie? It sounds like GL is similarly polarising and I loved Watchmen.
I really enjoyed it. I love the comic but didn’t mind some of the changes.
Snyder’s SuckerPunch on the other hand is the worst movie I’ve seen in my life. So bad I blogged about it here.