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Review: Green Lantern - Page 2 of 3 - SciFiNow

Review: Green Lantern

In Brightest Day?

Green Lantern reminds us of Thor, in that the movie takes place in two very disparate locations. Unlike the kaleidoscopically coloured Asgard, Oa is odd-looking, with a ton of different alien creatures shown sporadically yet never really making more than a passing appearance. Again, readers of the comic should enjoy these great little Easter eggs; everyone else will wonder why various humanoid zoo animals are defending the galaxy. It’s probably worth noting, however, that the trailers have perhaps oversold just how much of the movie takes place on Oa, the Green Lantern homeworld (it’s governed by the little space Guardians – think a Jedi Council made entirely out of blue Yodas).

Much of the Earth-bound story is accessible, though, from the exciting sequence of Hal Jordan stalling his plane above 50,000 feet to outwit some robot aircraft, to him mucking around with the actual Lantern in his flat. This side of the mythology is tackled really well, and is good fun ­– Green Lantern is a surprisingly irreverent superhero movie, against the tone of the books, with a slight feeling of tongue-in-cheekness that feels more in line with Ryan Reynolds’s acting style than the character of Hal Jordan. Nevertheless, it’s a great creative choice, as Reynolds’s comic timing ensures that the first half of the film is a lot more watchable than the second, when Jordan has intergalactic baggage to deal with. Later in the movie, the hero turns up at Carol Ferris’s abode wearing the mask designed to conceal his identity, and she recognises him immediately, making a couple of jokes at his expense. And that’s the type of movie it is, really. Green Lantern is light-hearted fare with a side of space opera, and the themes of responsibility take a backseat to one-liners, big green fists and Hal Jordan boasting about how fearless he is.

Peter Sarsgaard’s Hector Hammond feels slightly redundant, as the human face of Parallax. It’s another ‘victim’-turned-villain (my dad doesn’t like me and I can’t get the girl I want, boo-bloody-hoo) scenario, which has been overcooked by enough superhero films as it is. By the time he’s chucking his students about or cackling like the Emperor, you’ll yearn for the richer supervillain performances of Alfred Molina in Spider-Man 2 or the rogue’s gallery from Nolan’s Bat-films. Green Lantern slips up in this department, just as Thor did with the dorky Loki.