Green Lantern

Please see the movie before reading this review.

1. The two minutes of voiceover/narration should have been cut. First, do we really need to start the story with the backstory of the Green Lantern Corps? It would probably have been more natural (and less pretentious) to cover this in a conversation with Hal Jordan (probably when he meets up with the Corps on Oa). As it is, I think this information is a distraction from Hal, contributes to a disjoint between what the aliens are doing and what Hal is doing over the first 30 minutes, and is redundant with the two other scenes recapping the purpose and history of the GL Corps.

1.1. When you’re introducing a character and/or organization to readers, I think it’d be more effective to show them in their element rather than through lengthy exposition. We are later told Abin Sur is a “great light” of the Lanterns, but we never actually see him do anything impressive. Similarly, rather than introduce the GL Corps with a speech, I’d much rather see them doing a typical-but-interesting job (the GL equivalent of a hostage situation or a high-stakes bank robbery). Since the defining characteristic of the GL is supposed to be fearlessness, it’d be better to have them do something memorably courageous than to show them panicking as they face Parallax. Fleeing isn’t the most intuitive way to establish a corps founded on bravery. Moreover, we don’t actually see much fearlessness from the Lanterns over the course of the movie.

2. The relationship between Hal and his father was one-dimensional and did not help develop Hal or the plot. This felt like a very forced way to work courage vs. cowardice into the plot. “You’re not scared, are you, Dad?” “Let’s just say it’s my job not to be.” Ick. Here are some more effective examples of family cameos.

3. Main character Hal Jordan makes his first appearance 6 minutes into the movie. While I think it’s generally interesting to try scenes without the main characters (e.g. Dark Knight’s ferry scene), focusing on minor characters to the exclusion of the core of the story is probably unsound. I can’t think of any reason to start with the aliens here rather than either 1) starting with Hal and covering the information about the aliens later, probably when Hal meets the aliens or 2) starting with the aliens doing something which directly involves Hal. For example, it might make sense to start with Abin Sur as he’s looking for a Green Lantern – this would help develop what was so impressive about Hal that he caught Abin Sur’s eye.

4. The villains looked and sounded like a bad joke. Most of their dialogue felt almost as bad and corny as supervillain lines from the 1990s. “You are . . . (dramatic pause) afraid.” The visual design was probably worse, faithfully recreating the look of characters which looked awful in the comics. The lead villain looked like something out of Mars Attacks and anybody who signed off on giving Hector Hammond a scrotum for a forehead should check out Dark Knight’s Joker and ASM’s Lizard for examples of ugly villains that look imposing rather than laughable. As far as physical disfigurement stories go, I would recommend checking out any Clayface story, particularly the two “Feat of Clay” episodes in Batman: The Animated Series. The antagonist has more of a personality and a development arc.

4.1. I think more limited villains tend to be much more effective. I’d recommend looking at the most memorable villains for, say, Spider-Man or Batman – they’re usually city-wide threats (or occasionally global threats) rather than galactic threats, and I think that helps keep them grounded and remotely believable. For example, in terms of fear-themed villains, I think Scarecrow is vastly more effective than Parallax. Incidentally, using a villain with fear-themed powers might also have helped the moviemakers show what it was that Hal was so afraid of.

5. Taking out Hal Jordan’s secret identity (or maybe doing more with it) would probably have helped.

6. Hal is probably the most unlikable movie superhero in the last 15 years.

7. The origin story was lifeless. It would have really helped if Hal and/or Abin Sur had more memorable lines and unusual decisions. Sinestro later criticizes Hal for being unable to fill Abin Sur’s footsteps – “you insult his memory by wearing his ring.” So it would help to have Abin Sur do something here which shows that Abin Sur is genuinely impressive. At the very least, maybe we see Abin Sur defeat about ten of Parallax’s minions before being mortally wounded, and Hal uses Abin’s ring to defeat the last one. This would help show that, while Hal has much to learn, he’s not totally useless right now; he’s brave and empathetic enough to get involved in a dangerous fight, which isn’t his. If he picked up a signature wound here, that might be a helpful symbol of bravery (more subtle than just talking about it all of the time). As it was, Abin Sur showed me nothing to make me care about his death. Hell, I would have missed Coleman Reese more if he had been killed in Dark Knight - he’s a greedy bastard, but he shows a bit of humanness/personality in how he bungles the blackmail scene with Lucius.

8. Some of the one-liners are actually pretty stylish, although more clever than masterful.

9. There’s a lot of wasted space.

10. The scene transitions could use work. For example, the transition from Hal in the cockpit to Hal day-dreaming about his father’s death is seeing a picture of his father in the cockpit. If he’s that distracted by a picture of his father, why does he have the picture in the cockpit? Another example is when the geeky friend and Hal are talking about Hal’s superpowers, and the friendly randomly ends the conversation with the line: “Don’t they [superheroes] usually get the girl?” That’s a really awkward transition to a conversation between Hal and Carol. I think it would have been much smoother to end the conversation with a phone-call by Carol.

11. Important decisions need believable consequences. By violating the terms of engagement in the test, Hal does more than anybody else to ensure that the company will lose a major contract and risk bankruptcy. The owner decides to fire half of the company, but Carol intervenes to spare Hal. WTF? I don’t see why she would, especially after she chews him out for using her as a decoy, destroying his plane, violating the terms of engagement, and losing the contract. She also criticized him for being irresponsibly late and pointed out she would rather have had Jensen. It doesn’t feel believable that she goes so easy on him. (She explains that it’s because she cares about him so much, but we don’t actually see him earn that consideration – also, there’s no indication that their relationship is serious at that point and she even acknowledges it when she says “you’ll fly with anybody who will get in the plane with you”).

12. The conversations could be more coherent. For example, in a conversation where Carol is mainly berating Hal for his irresponsibility and losing the company the contract, Hal randomly shifts to criticizing her for wearing a business-suit. This could be a lot smoother – for example, tie this into the main thread of conversation. For example, maybe he points out that she’s coming at him like a businesswoman rather than a pilot – he made a bad business decision by not losing, but fighter pilots play to win.

13. There were too few unusual decisions, especially for minor characters.

14. There were several plot-holes.

15. Killing off characters without any development is not liable to make an emotional impression. Again, I’d recommend checking out Up and Kick-Ass for more ideas about how to use a death to develop the characters/plot and make a lasting impression on viewers. Green Lantern could have done a lot more with these characters:

16. The Green Lantern Oath should be cut or readapted. Hal Jordan stumbling through this scene is one of the most painful things I’ve witnessed in a superhero movie. I think the writers originally wanted to take it seriously/solemnly but realized how stupid it was to have the character go through this scene knowing as little as he did. It might have been a better plan to let the character know what the oath is but make him uneasy about proceeding for some reason. (If H.P. Lovecraft has taught me anything, pacts with alien artifacts should not be made lightly.) Avengers incorporated its comic book legacy much more effectively than GL did here – Avengers made changes like shedding most of the superhero names almost entirely (to make conversations feel more natural) and giving Hulk only one line of dialogue (“Puny god”). Avengers gave “Hulk smash” catchphrase to another character, which cleverly threaded the needle between Hulk fans that want to hear the catchphrase and viewers that would have felt stupid listening to Hulk referring to himself in the third-person.

17. The romance between Hal and Carol needs a world of help. I was particularly unimpressed by the scene where he keeps humming as he asks her to dance. She says no three times, he keeps humming, and then the camera cuts to them dancing. I have less respect for her because she falls for this horrible pickup. In contrast, I can totally see why ladies fall for Tony Stark and Xavier. They’ve got charm. For example, Xavier took a creative and memorable approach praising random women for their genetic mutations in First Class, whereas Green Lantern dropped forgettable lines like, “You look pretty.”

18. Protagonist-vs-protagonist conflict is lacking and antagonist-vs-antagonist is nonexistent. Hal vs. Kilowogg was very brief, but I thought Kilowogg was sort of memorable because he’s more likable than most drill instructor characters. Hal vs. Carol stalls early (when she saves his job) and never recovers.

19. For the sake of plot coherence, Hal needs to reach the Green Lantern homeworld much sooner than 39 minutes in. Prior to this point, nothing connects Hal to the central plot (defeating Parallax). If I had been rewriting the script from scratch, I probably would have had Hal meet Abin Sur around 10 minutes in and reach Oa 12-15 minutes in. Until Hal gets to Oa, everything the aliens do will probably feel like a distraction.

20. The scene introducing Hal to the GL Corps is largely ineffective. Instead of having a pretty basic conversation about where they are and covering the backstory for a third time* (!), it would probably have been more interesting to have the alien start asking Hal questions to make sure that his knowledge-base is working properly. (Remember, they’re not sure if it will work on a species as young as humans). Then, when Hal asks questions, he can just skip to stuff more interesting than “Where are we?”

21. The aliens might have been more memorable if they had been more individualized.

22. The superpowers could have been used in a much more impressive way. Go-karts. Oh, God, go-karts. This scene probably cost more than $5 million and is still laughably inept and corny. The use of go-karts is the only major decision in the scene, and it’s a real head-scratcher. (It’d be in-character for Billy Branson, maybe, but a fighter pilot?) Another character points out how much this scene sucked. “A race track. That’s the best you could come up with for your first big appearance?” “I’m sorry, did I disappoint you?” YES. Batman does much more with what he can fit in a belt. Nightcrawler mixed a heretofore-forgettable ability with acrobatics to execute a White House scene for the ages. Chronicle’s characters were fittingly immature with their superpowers in a charming and fun way. Hal Jordan had nigh-unlimited powers and he came up with a neon race track.

23. Hal’s departure from the Green Lanterns could have been more memorable if there had been more consequences. For example, they should probably confiscate his lantern – that way, the ring will eventually die out, but he’ll have enough energy to get back to Earth. This would give him a brief window of time to redeem himself and/or reconsider his decision to leave the Corps. I’d also want to put more thought into why he returns. As it is, it’s just the voiceover repeating: “To be chosen by the ring is the highest of honors and the greatest of responsibilities. The ring never makes a mistake.” If that was enough to change his mind, why didn’t it work the first time? I would instead have him get back to Earth, get drawn into a crisis and manage something brave and responsible, convincing him that he might actually be fit for this position. (Then, when he gets back home, he could find his lantern and a “Welcome back” note).

24. A more complex style of pacing the scenes might have helped. In Green Lantern, almost all of the scenes were self-contained. One would be introduced and finished, and the next would be introduced and finished. In contrast, other movies have done a much better job mixing things up, like introducing one scene, temporarily switching to another, and then finishing the first. For example, Dark Knight used this really effectively to build anticipation and/or raise the stakes during certain scenes. The ferry scene was interspersed with the scene where Batman tries to stop a SWAT team from shooting hostages dressed as criminals; the SWAT scene is more urgent and desperate because we know the ferry passengers are on the line. Coleman Reese threatens to reveal Batman’s secret identity, but then the scene switches and the movie waits about 10 minutes to actually resolve the Reese scene – I think that helps establish how many different problems are unfolding in Batman’s life and helps build anticipation for the resolution to the Reese threat.

25. Don’t force characters into conversations they aren’t prepared to have. “This new weapon of yours, you can’t use it. Once you’ve crossed that line, once you’ve given into fear, you’ll never go back. I’ve seen it.” 1) There’s no way he knows enough about this plot thread to actually deliver these lines. 2) Given his personal history, I don’t understand why he’d have this point of view. “You’ll never go back if you give into fear”? Umm, what? He gave into fear by leaving the Green Lantern Corps, but came back.

26. Miscellaneous snark about the conversations.

27. Final verdict: Green Lantern is probably the worst movie either DC or Marvel has come out with since 2000. If I were on a plane, I’d literally rather listen to the jet engines than watch this movie. Out of two hours of screen-time, perhaps fifteen minutes were better than a jet engine. In contrast, Catwoman had 20-30 watchable minutes. Benjamin Bratt’s scenes were generally at least decent and Catwoman’s action/fight scenes were significantly better than GL’s.