Going Green With Green Lantern
GREEN LANTERN (DVD)
Warner Home Video
Release date: October 17th 2011
Certificate (UK): 12
Running time: 114 minutes
Director: Martin Campbell
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong
Green, the colour of minty freshness, of newly cut grass in spring and apparently of will, the strongest power in the known universe.
Ryan Reynolds dons the minty green outfit in this latest superhero outing, based on the DC Comics. He plays Hal Jordon, a reckless and irresponsible test pilot. Despite his innumerable screw-ups in life, he’s quite a good flyer, gifted some might even say.
The death of his father, when Hal was just a young boy, is something that still haunts him and he dreams of being as good a flyer as he was but something just keeps getting in way.
Elsewhere in the universe there’s a very bad thing happening. The Green Lantern Corps are a group of protectors who are sworn to keep intergalactic order. Each Green Lantern wears a ring that grants him superpowers, the ring is forged from will which allows them to fight fear and to manifest anything they can imagine from it but a new and powerful enemy called Parallax has harnessed the force of fear and threatens to destroy anything in his path.
One of these rings seeks out Hal as a new recruit, as someone who has the power to overcome fear and as the threat of Parallax looms closer to Earth, he has to become the hero.
As a superhero film, Green Lantern has moments which are visually impressive. The opening scenes take us deep into the universe to where Parallax is imprisoned and we see him breaking free, devouring everything in his path. As a villain Parallax looks terrifying as he grows larger and larger like some sort of deformed space octopus. There’s an overload of special effects which will definitely excite younger viewers although the use of 3D effects again seems unnecessary as with Thor (2011) earlier this year.
There’s a substantial lack in plot and character development here. Government officials are hinted as being card-carrying Illuminati members, while others are “truth seekers” but these hints are just that and they are never elaborated on to any extent where they have a bearing on the story. Perhaps they’ll tell us more later on in any planned sequels, but for the here and now, this is where we need it.
The back-story with Hal’s father is inserted as a rather abrupt flashback sequence which is jarring and despite the epic battle towards the end, I was left wanting something a bit more after the film’s final moments.
Ryan Reynolds is well cast though as the cocky hero who first has to face the fact that he’s afraid. The humour is a bit flat, but in all honesty, it’s not the humour that fans and cinemagoers alike will be looking for in a movie this – it’s a candy coloured superhero romp that won’t exhaust your mind.
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