Movie Review: Green Lantern
One of the reasons I don’t consume others’ reviews before I write my own is to avoid any influence or predisposition on my thoughts about a motion picture, which studios and artists generally work hard to create, so now I have a better understanding why some of my own friends don’t read my reviews before they see a movie that’s on their list (I try to write mine with a minimum of “spoilers” and also strive to make it worth reading after one has seen the picture). In the case of Warner Bros.’ Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal), it was impossible to avoid exposure to the fact of negative reviews, which I did not read. Let me just say that I have a low regard for most other reviewers, with a few exceptions, such as Rex Reed and Ed Gonzalez, for a variety of reasons; most critics tend to be snide, sell out, or have a pack mentality or, worse, they have no mentality, saying nothing at all. I don’t know why they don’t like Green Lantern, which is hardly a great movie, but I do like it and here’s why.
Green Lantern is the story of a young aviator (Reynolds) who is haunted by his past, loved by a woman with a mind to match his own, and committed to a certain reverence for life. He has to overcome his flaws, which come with a dose of New Age claptrap about energy that has a core of truth about it, accept his power in full and choose to be his best. That he does, and while Green Lantern is choppy, flawed, and takes too long to set up, I’m enjoying this spate of comic book-based movies that are like old radio serials and this movie’s fine for what it is, like Thor. The downsides are that there’s not enough of Reynolds doing his witty banter, there’s too much of the college professor villain, overplayed but delectably so by Peter Sarsgaard (Kinsey), and the overworked script fails to line up myth and reality as well as Thor does.
But DC Comics’ Green Lantern‘s upsides are an American hero, who uses his brains but blasts his guns, firing upon the enemy at will, evoking the response we should have had after 9/11 to the jihadist Islamic enemy, and wiping out bad guys without mercy while unifying the good in spite of doubts of the commander of the Green Lantern Corps (Mark Strong). Free will powers up the movie’s corps of good guys, who come and go too fast, and Reynolds’ character chooses to activate his inner strength with a carefree sense of humor that makes this matinee outing an enjoyable action movie. The picture’s Ferris Aviation business, run by his spitfire love interest, Carol Ferris (brown-eyed Blake Lively), looks like a marvelous place to fly, work and create, which comes across when Reynolds shows up for work and tells her: “Now let’s get my pants off and fly some planes.” If only director Martin Campbell, who did banter nicely in Mask of Zorro, had been able to pull that sensibility through the rest of the movie. Despite its shortcomings, Green Lantern has a kind of glow.