Wednesday Comments – The Failure of Green Lantern

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So, I finally went to see Green Lantern. I figured that since Hal Jordan got me into comics and I’ve been reading GL for years that I should do my part to help the movie out.

And the movie needed help. In case you haven’t heard Green Lantern “underperformed” at the box office. That basically means that, while it didn’t flop, it’s a failure. And now that I’ve seen it, I can totally see why.

But even before I’d seen it, I knew I was going to be in for quite the experience. At the theater where I wanted to see Green Lantern, the last day it was playing was Thursday. So I hit the first show of the day.

It was the smallest theater I’ve ever been in. No joke; it was probably the size of my apartment. I’m guessing there were between 80 and 100 seats, so it was pretty small. And to make matters worse, I was the sole person in attendance.

I’m sure the guys working there was pissed that they had to run the projector and go through the motions.

Actually watching Green Lantern was difficult. On one hand, as a longtime fan it’s like a dream come true to see one of my favorite heroes on the big screen, so I’ve got these huge expectations. But on the other hand since it’d been already been out for a few weeks, I knew I’d heard nothing good about it, so I attempted to lower my expectations.

And it was that tug of war was something that kept going on the entire movie. Any time I had a gripe about continuity or things not being as they were in the comics, I had to remind myself that this movie was supposed to appeal to people who couldn’t tell John Stewart from Alan Scott. Warner Brothers had made a movie that was designed to appeal to fanboys. It was called Watchmen and it also “underperformed.”

I guess I’ll start with the positive things. Green Lantern did have some good moments (though none of them happen in the dreadful first act.) Peter Sarsgaard and Mark Strong give some impressive performances. Whenever they’re on the screen they’re the most compelling things going.

And that’s it for the good.

The bad is everywhere. Hal Jordan the wiseass got annoying, real fast. The CGI got old. The main villain of a Legion-esque Parallax not only wasn’t compelling and made little sense, but it also bore little resemblance to the comics. And the cramming in of Sinestro’s yellow ring was about as heavy handed as you get. His eventual turn was as telegraphed in the movie as it was on the movie poster.

I literally had nothing good to say about the movie to my friends.

I am glad that Warner Brothers hasn’t completely given up on the Green Lantern franchise and that they still seem to be going ahead with a sequel. Hopefully they’ll have learned some valuable lessons from the first outing.

I’m sure at some point I’ll actually dissect Green Lantern and the missteps they made. I’ll probably even offer up what I’d do with the sequel. But not this week.

This week is all about wallowing in the failure of Green Lantern.