Green Lantern [DVD] [2011]

Once upon a time there was a universe entirely drawn on computer. It spawned a race of heroes known as the `Green Lanterns' who wore computer generated suits. However, a large computer generated baddie thing came along and they had to fight it. They imprisoned it on a computer generated planet at the edge of the galaxy until three computer generated survivors from a crippled computer generated spaceship accidentally set him free. Cut to Earth where Ryan Reynolds plays a test pilot of a computer generated fighter jet. And, guess what, he ends up joining the team of computer generated Green Lanterns. He uses his cosmic ring to create an array of computer generated special effects in order to fight the computer generated baddie. Do you get where I'm going with this? 99% of this film is drawn on computers. If you can get over this, you might like it. To be fair, the story's not bad - what you'd expect from a superhero film. The actors do their best with what you'd expect. I know it's been given a rough ride and it does have some stiff competition in the superhero movie leagues against the Marvel Avengers franchise, but it isn't as bad as you've probably heard it to be. It'll never be the Dark Knight, but at least it won't be Daredevil. Special mention to the scene where Ryan Reynolds takes his girlfriend to a bar one night - it's almost entirely filmed without the help of computer graphics!

My personal feelings are that sometimes a reviewer for papers & such with some of their comments really do make we think if they went to see the movie I saw because this had so many bad reviews & you know what I think it is that the critics like Super Hero movies made for the older audience & when something like this that is truly friendly to the family to go see together as I remember the look on our youngest's face when he saw the second Batman he was terrified & really made me think bad choice & if the Richard Donner Superman had been made for today's Critic they would have slammed it also & why,well because the movie is family friendly as i said previously but it also has an ethic for a younger audience to see & that is to not let fear rule them.I can't honestly see how the kids these days will not turn out total screw ups when all they have surrounding them from movies (Batman Begins & The Dark Knight),video games which really are totally made for older men (I laugh at any man over 22 that still plays video games & more so if they have kids,I mean come on get up off your butt & go kick a ball around with your kids)but what I really laugh at is the stupidity of critics slamming a movie so obviously aimed at giving the children a little lesson & also provide families with good entertainment so in short the film please give a view especially if like me you have a young family & then spend the next 2 hours watching your son playing Green Lantern.Enjoy the movie because give it a chance & you will.

For the uninitiated:The two big American comic book companies are Marvel and DC. The former publish Spiderman, the Hulk, Captain America, The X Men and many others. And have been doing rather well of late with converting their characters into movie versions.DC comics publish Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman. Movies of the first two have usually done well. But they're not getting as many of their characters onto the big screen as Marvel at the moment. So here, their parent company Warners have taken one of them and tested the water to see how a movie of a dc character who isn't Batman or Superman will do.Green Lantern is one of the bigger characters of the DC ones who aren't Batman or Superman, and has been around for a while. And through a lot of changes on the printed page in that time. Basically he's a space policeman. An immortal race of aliens called the Guardians of the universe sought to impose order on the cosmos by setting up the Green Lantern Corps, a group of beings who have powerful rings that draw energy from willpower. They can construct anything the user imagines. But they're not effective against anything coloured yellow. For various plot reasons.There are thousands of Green Lanterns, and they and the guardians are based on the planet Oa. When the Green Lantern of Sector 2814, which includes Earth, is killed by a being called Parallax who is fear incarnate, he crashes on Earth. And his ring selects a worthy replacement.Hal Jordan. Test pilot. Man with severe issues with authority and someone who has never quite grown up and taken responsibility for anything. And will run away from situations and responsibility rather than commit. Not least because he saw his father die following a test flight years ago and hasn't quite gotten over that.Hal's attitude never sits well with Carol, daughter of the owner of the aircraft company his father flew for. Yet childhood friendship means she can't quite give up on him, even as she takes the responsibility of running the company.Also a disappointment to someone is Hector Hammond. Who grew up alongside Carol and Hal but disappointed his senator father by going into science. And not making much of a career out of that.So now Hal has been chosen to become a green lantern will he face up to the responsibility? And the Green Lantern Sinestro who was a good friend of Hal's predecessor and who thinks he won't measure up. Then there's Parallax to contend with as well. Plus Hector once he also gets great power. And the military who have gotten their hands on the remains of Hal's predecessor...Like any superhero movie that tries to start a franchise this has to get all the exposition out of the way first of all. And perhaps there's just a little too much of here. They probably could have left Hector out entirely for now. Added to which the story means that Hal has to start off as an irresponsible Jerk and complete his course towards being great Green Lantern by the end, so he may come over as difficult to like to begin with. And the crowded narrative means that Carol possibly doesn't get enough to do.The scenes on Oa are all studio bound and done with backdrops and thus don't quite convince as well as they should, the other Green Lanterns we see are superby rendered. Only four of them actually get any dialogue [that includes Hal's predecessor Abin Sur] those who do are exceptionally good creations. Geoffrey Rush providing superbly eloquent tones for fish like Alien Tomar Re. And Mark Strong turning in a superb performance as the aforementioned SInestro, really showing what makes the character tick.By the end Hal is right where he needs to be as a character to continue on the story and make any sequel really fly.This is a movie worth judging for yourself. It does what it needs to do in order to start a series. And it may not measure up to some of the marvel movies that have done their characters origins. There may not be a sequel since it didn't do Iron Man style numbers. But it could really go places from the end of this. So I hope there is.Stay watching during the end credits as there is one extra scene during them. Which is set up for a possible sequel.The dvd has the following language and subtitle options:Languages: English, Italian.Subtitles: English, Italian.The disc begins with several trailers, which can be skipped by pressing the next button on the dvd remote.The only extras are a six minute long preview of a forthcoming cgi cartoon series of Green Lantern.Plus a preview of Justice League issue one, a recently launched new comic from DC in which Green Lantern appears. Along with Batman and others. The preview shows you the first few pages, allowing you to navigate the panels via the menu buttons on the dd remote.If you like the movie you may also like to look at  Green Lantern - The Movie Prequels  which collects five comics that tell what each of the main characters in the film were doing prior to the point where the story begins.

Not a great film but if you don't take it too seriously its quite entertaining.