Green Lantern (2011)

So here it is…I am a Green Lantern fan. When I was a kid and reading comic books Hal Jordan and Green Lantern was my guy.  As much as I love Batman, Iron Man, and a few lower comic book heroes, Green Lantern was always my guy.  So I was always going to like this movie unless it was a colossal failure on the scale of the film Batman & Robin.  This movie is nowhere near that kind of failure.  I do have some issues with this film, but unlike most of the movie going population of the planet, I did like the film and it sits in my movie collection.

Hal Jordan, played by Ryan Reynolds (Smokin’ Aces,) is a test pilot for Ferris Aircraft when he is recruited by the Green Lantern Corp upon the death of Green Lantern Abin Sur who crash landed on Earth.  Sur’s death is due to a battle against an evil entity known as Parallax that lives and grows off of the fear of other beings.  While Hal is sent to the planet Oa to learn about being a Green Lantern, old childhood friend Hector Hammond, played by Peter Sarsgaard (Jarhead,) is asked to inspect the dead body of Abin Sur and while doing the autopsy become infected with Parallax’s energy that was left over in Abin Sur.  Eventually Hal is forced to fight Hammond a couple of times, one of which not only puts his sort of girlfriend Carol Ferris, played by Blake Lively (The Town,) but summons the entity Parallax to kill off the Lantern who bears the ring of Abin Sur and absorb the people of Earth to become even more powerful and destroy the home world of the Green Lanterns.

So the biggest problem bringing Green Lantern to the big screen and introducing him to a world of people who aren’t familiar with his story, is explaining his personal story.  Unlike Batman where in five minutes you can show that he is the son of a billionaire whose parents are murdered by a thug, or Superman who is an alien from another world who was sent to Earth to live, Green Lantern takes a human and introduces it to a galactic police force comprised of aliens.  It’s hard to explain the basics of the story of Green Lantern in 30 minutes.  It’s going to take time to not only tell the story but set up the relationships between them.  So as the movie tries to show the backstory of the Green Lantern Corps and of Hal Jordan.  Because of this the movie is paced slowly and not as exciting as the Batman movies before it and many of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films.  I just don’t see how it can be helped because it’s a complicated story and not easily understood.

As for the other big issue many people have I am one who also doesn’t have a problem with Ryan Reynolds playing Hal Jordan.  Reynolds does the charismatic, narcissistic, hero with a heart and some demons with a sense of humor well.  It is in his wheel house as an actor.  In Green Lantern he is running around doing what Ryan Reynolds things and it works.

My problems with the rest of the cast vary from looking like they are phoning it in, which describes Blake Lively, to the characters that were written poorly, like Hector Hammond.  I think Sarsgaard did an admiral job of the character but his backstory of being a failure in the eyes of his father, Senator Hammond, played by Tim Robbins (Jacob’s ladder,) considering he is a college professor seems a little heavy handed.  I just wish they would have come up with something better.

I guess the problem with Hector Hammond is that he isn’t Hal Jordan’s greatest enemy but he is a lessor one that is a classic villain but not the best one for a debut film.  And then teaming him up with Parallax which is the equivalent to Batman’s Bane or Superman’s Doomsday, all villains who destroyed their super hero counterparts, really doesn’t help the story.  I am guessing that if the producers of the film knew that this movie wasn’t going to do well at the box office they probably would have scrapped this story and gone with Hal Jordan’s greatest nemesis, Sinestro.  Sinestro, played by Mark Strong (Kingsman: The Secret Service,) does have a part in this film as a member of the Green Lantern Corps, which he was in the comic book lore, and challenges Hal Jordan at every level in the film.  This is all correct in developing the back story for the Green Lantern Corp.  The sequel of this film was surely going to have Sinestro as the enemy but with the failure of this film it never materialized.  This is a shame because I believe that film would have made up for this one’s lack of action for sure, in my opinion.

A lot was made of the special effects of the film and how the movie seemed to spend more on that then on plot development. While I will agree that the plot is weak, we are again talking about an intergalactic alien police force.  Special effects are going to have to be involved and are going to have to be heavy, it’s unavoidable.

That’s about all I have on the film.  I was disappointed that the producers cancelled the sequel but I am also guessing it had to do with the new direction Warner Brothers and DC wanted to take the DC universe on which is on a parallel course to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Green Lantern would not have been a good start to it and I believe it’s the last DC comic book movie made that has no ties to the future films that started with Man of Steel.  As a fan of Green Lantern I will have to wait until Justice League to see if he makes an appearance in it and if it doesn’t I have to wait until 2020 for the Green Lantern Corps to be released.  Hopefully it will honor the lore of the character and make the movie going public happy.

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Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

This review was a challenge from Benn to Brian.

I love liberal hippies and their conspiracy theories. It allows them to blame the government, or some other entity, for their actions instead of taking responsibility. Which is what this movie is all about, government conspiracy in the Vietnam War, wow, how original. Oh, and the ending doesn’t make since and should have been re-written.

Tim Robbins (Mystic River) stars as Jacob Singer, postal worker who is a Vietnam War veteran who is seeing demons and aliens in his world as they try to capture him. He is also having nightmares about the battle in which he was wounded in Vietnam, as well as talking to his son who was killed in an accident before the War. Kind a confusing, isn’t it?

The beginning of the story is quite engaging. Obviously this guy has war issues and seeing the demons that he does would suggest a connection. For the first half of the movie, before the conspiracy theory comes to light, I found the movie very enjoyable because of this conflict. It appeared to be a man who saw something that has caused him to lose sight on reality when forced into a pressure situation, which working for the post office, would seem to be a 24 hour stressful job.

Tim Robbins performance is very steady. I guess it is easier to say that it was a very Tim Robbins performance, good but not great, conservative in his approach. Does the man know how to take a risk? I am not bagging on him, because he is a good actor, but has his performance ever changed? From Bull Durham to Shawshank Redemption his performance never changes.

The real problem is that the story just plain sucks. After the halfway point we discover that there is a possible government/army cover-up that involved his unit and the night he was wounded. This is the point where the story starts to unravel. If there is a cover-up, why did they rescue the injured men? Why not leave them to die in the jungle, dead man can tell no tales. However, writer Bruce Joel Rubin, leaves the best for the last. After Jacob learns all of these horror’s of evil government involvement, he goes back home, walks with his dead child upstairs and the movie fades into brilliant light. From the light we are moved back to Vietnam, where Jacob is lying on the table and he dies. The doctors covered him up and leave, the end. Let me be the first to say what the f*ck? He dies on the operating table in Vietnam and everything since that time is some kind of pot induced hallucination while his body fades away? Doesn’t that nullify everything that Jacob discovered? Why does he discover it when there is nothing he can do about it? This is all just very bad writing to try to prove a point that isn’t necessary.

I am sure that there are/were a lot of messed up men that came home from the war. The combination of the horror of war, and the drugs that some of them used probably made for a bad after war life. But dreaming up of conspiracy theories to justify the use of drugs or the mindless waste of men demeans the loss of men and what they died for. You are a bad man Mr. Rubin, and by the looks of your career since this movie it looks like you have been and will continue to be punished for your writing. Avoid this movie unless you like Michael Moore, then you will probably love it.

Brian – the Naked Gun

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