Green Lantern movie’s failure can serve some good purposes

I could easily fill pages running down the plot obstacles that Lantern director Martin Campbell soullessly cycles through; identifying all the characters introduced by the film's four screenwriters, only to be easily disposed of; and "explaining" the complete hodgepodge of psychological cause-and-effects, from the pervasive daddy issues and complete absence of mothers, to the arbitrary, less-than-convincing confidence issues that Hal is able to surmount as soon as it becomes clear that Carol really wants to kiss him. But the movie never bothers to suggest that any of that really matters: Campbell’s ADD style privileges spectacle over story—so much so that the film never rewards the viewer for even trying to keep track of what is going on.

Unfortunately, the film is roundly scuppered by a laughably poor script (try sitting through that first flashback scene without giggling) which combines shockingly bad dialogue (“Oh no! Yellow power!”) with a plot that feels awkwardly rushed, as if wanting to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. It's also glaringly obvious that large chunks of the film are missing; one particular scene has Hal appearing out of nowhere, with no set-up whatsoever.

One of the biggest problems with Green Lantern is that it’s not particularly engaging. The big Green Lantern universe is explained – the Guardians, Oa, the green energy of willpower, the yellow energy of fear, the Corps, hundreds of alien species – but it remains inert on screen. Green Lantern is a pretty standard 1980s-style superhero movie with some fancy scifi trappings that don’t amount to much beyond fan service. It’s the sort of movie where we’re told that the Guardians are ancient, powerful immortals… and that’s it. There’s little else to them, and they do little else. We see the Corps in big crowd shots, and we’re told what the Corps is and what they can do, but we only get to see them doing anything once – and in that scene a whole bunch of them are killed off by the evil Parallax, which sort of undermines everything we’re told.

“Green Lantern” is so CGI dependent it’s a wonder someone bothered to lug a camera onto the set. Reynolds flexes his appealing blend of arrogance and heart to play the title character, but there’s little super about this hero.

To all people who are not fans of a comic book. Don’t review the movies or if you do read the comic before approaching it. Quite frankly I’m tired of reading misinformed critics who don’t bother to read source material before seeing the film.

If you have to be familiar with the source material to enjoy the adaptation, then that adaptation is a failure as anything other than fan service. If it’s not possible to make an adaptation that can stand alone, then it probably shouldn’t be made in the first place (unless you can make it cheap enough that you can get by on the fanboy market alone).

Ryan Reynolds is all surface as Hal Jordan, the reckless test pilot recruited by the intergalactic Green Lantern Corps to protect the world from evil, in this case the many-tentacled Parallax, a former Lantern who went power-mad. Adapting the DC Comics franchise are four credited screenwriters who, besides deserving no credit, falsely indicate that Hal is the first human Lantern. Huh? Back in 1940, artist Martin Nodell and writer Bill Finger created the first one as railway engineer Alan Scott. Hal didn't show up on the page till 1959.

The green ring allows Hal Jordan to conjure up anything he can think of, but what's frustrating is that much of what the filmmakers dream up for Hal to conjure are items that are just silly. Hal saves dozens of lives - including Carol's - by turning a crashing helicopter into a race car and spinning it around on a race track. And because it's just downright ridiculous, one of the film's big action scenes is squandered and what could have been a powerful, dynamic demonstration of Hal's new powers turns into something akin to a childish-looking prank.