Green Lantern
It’s easy to forgive the lack of great plot and CGI finesse and just enjoy some witty dialogue and cool fights.

Call me basic, but sometimes it’s a fantastic feeling going to see a film knowing that your primary objective is to mentally flip the switch in your brain (the one labelled ‘THINKING’) and sit, with your mouth open, looking a bit simple, whilst things get shiny, and bang around a lot and people all go a bit beautiful for a couple of hours. Green Lantern is a film that allows such a privilege.

The DC comic turned explosive, epilepsy-inducing 3D epic has all the trappings of a summer superhero blockbuster, but somehow manages to put the ticks nowhere near the appropriate boxes. Its first flaw is an attempt to compact a detailed and slightly hard-to-follow back-story into a hasty minute or so of audio, laid over an intense flashing sequence reminiscent of an Apple Mac Screensaver.

We hear something about the whole universe being divided into 3000+ sectors and policed by a group of aliens more diverse than a Benetton advert, who happen to use magic jewellery that harnesses the power of pure ‘Will’, the strongest force in the universe apparently (gravity’s just not cool anymore). ‘Will’ is, for some reason, green – and these space-based community support police officers use it to fight the pure evil of ‘Fear’, which is yellow. ‘Fear’ inexplicably takes the form of a big angry dark smoky cloud with a huge forehead and has apparent ‘beef’ with most of, well, everything.

Plot-wise, the film is slightly lacking in depth. Daredevil ‘Hal Jordon’ (Ryan Reynolds) starts off as a cocksure test pilot whose misguided actions result in him losing his job, only to find (without any personal effort or help from a galactic job centre) that he eligible for a much better job as a cocksure protector against evil/fear/weird, huge foreheaded cloud. Using some green jewellery, he then has to fight some evil cloud to prove himself to himself, as well as some very cynical alien allies.

We are also treated to the dynamic character, Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) an insanely, pointlessly attractive heroine-cum-equally-daring test pilot who becomes suddenly, conveniently unable to deal with any level of danger (despite being a jet plane test pilot). Our damsel is distressed, and needs saving – but she’s also exactly the help Hal needs discover why, despite being a cocksure cocky cock, he’s been picked to be a cosmic policeman with the best weapon ever, a ring that turns your thoughts into reality.

Finally we have a villain, Hector Hammond (the excellent Peter Sarsgaard, An Education) whose main job is to play the Yin to Hal’sYang: a tortured scientist whose jock (probably Republican) politician dad “never understood” him. With an obvious aversion to Hal and his chemistry with Carol, Hector serves as the perfect host for ‘Evil Fear Cloud.’  With that final ingredient we have a plot that requires you to just be able to use Velcro in order to follow it.

With rushed scenes and none too snappy dialogue the film manages to fall short of forging any real connection with the audience, to the extent that at some points I couldn’t have cared less whether the bad, scary cloud ate some planets or not. Hal’s quick progression from carefree cocky cock to sudden ‘This magic ring makes me care about the world!…and now I really want to save it!’ about-face was not all that believable.

Despite its lofty budget, the CGI landscapes manage to look like the opening title sequence to a late 90s PC game, and Hal’s skin-tight electrical green muscle suit is just weird. It makes you wonder if director Martin Campbell ever read an issue of the comic.

However, aside from all of these textbook cinematic errors I still found the film mildly entertaining and despite dealing with a 2-D character, Ryan Reynolds manages to pull off a fairly loveable hero. After a recent rash of ‘tortured’ gruff voiced super-protagonists, it’s nice to have a hero who doesn’t see his need to fight evil/fear/clouds as a cosmic cross to bear, and simply embraces his super gifts as “cool.”

The film has occasional very funny moments (one such being Carol Ferris instantly recognising Hal Jordon as ‘The Green Lantern’ beneath his pointlessly small eye mask, and exclaiming “How did you think I wouldn’t recognise you? I’ve seen you naked…!”) and Reynolds has a near endless supply of witty retorts and one-liners that are clearly great instinctive ad-libs.

Although not necessarily well executed, the film has originality in the form of fight sequences between the lanterns and the various evil bits of cloud. With an army of heroes whose power is to basically use rings to think of anything and then have it appear for them to utilise, the fight sequences are a constant whirlwind of cleverly orchestrated to-ing and fro-ing with rocks appearing out of thin air, only to crash onto thought conjured steal shields whilst giant hands are flying at faces and green jet planes are appearing out of nowhere to fly people around.

All in all, it’s as enjoyable as most base level sci-fi action epics, and it’s easy to forgive the lack of great plot and CGI finesse and just enjoy some witty dialogue and cool fights. So if, like me, on a lazy Sunday afternoon you need some mind-numbing, loud, ‘super’ entertainment, I would definitely recommend adding this film to your ‘sit down and switch off whilst forcing chocolate and popcorn into your mouth’ pile.