Here's my review of the Green Lantern live-action movie. It's pretty harsh, I've got to warn you.
http://sequentialreview.com/
Green Lantern
Movie » Green Lantern released on June 17, 2011.
A live-action adaptation of Hal Jordan's origin story. Following the death of the Green Lantern's greatest member, Abin Sur, Hal Jordan is chosen to bare the famous ring and protect sector 2814, but will he continue with the great responsibility Abin Sur has given him or will he decline?
Green Lantern was a Jumbled Mess
Quite harsh, actually, and I have to thank you for that. All too often, being a fan of a character can lead one to rationalize a film as being better than it is. You even take the extra step of separating your opinions as a fan from your opinions as a film critic, a very sound tactic that gives you an additional degree of credibility.
I always have to choke back bile when someone sticks up for filmmakers that botch a film like this. They seem to think that we should be grateful for ANY cinematic adaptation of the comics we love. I disagree with them (to an extent that borders on physical violence) for several reasons.
1. While a certain degree of alteration is necessary in the transition from page to film, care must be taken to keep intact the core of the material, the essence, if you will, of what makes it what it is. Otherwise, stop being lazy and just come up with your own characters and mythology. If your child wants a puppy for his birthday, and you get him one, but then have it stuffed, mounted, and dyed neon pink before you give it to him, how do you think he's going to react?
2. A bad movie is still a bad movie, and no matter how awesome and popular the characters may be, they can only compensate so much for poor casting choices, sub-par plots, uninspired dialogue, or failures on any of the many aspects that make up a film. Expecting me to pay for and enjoy a ziplock bag filled with guano is insulting. Expecting the fact that the bag has the Batman logo on it to make a difference is super-insulting.
3. If we just start blindly accepting horrible films with forced enthusiasm, that's all we're going to get. Hollywood isn't going to sink the extra effort and resources into giving us a polished, professional product if they know we're going to pile into the theater regardless of how mediocre the films are. Loyalty is something that needs to be earned. Comic franchises have, in many cases, spent decades in building up their fan base with quality material.
4. Finally, for the love of all that is holy, these people were paid more to make this film than the entire net worth of the city I grew up in! They do not need anyone defending them! If they were really doing their jobs, their work would stand on its own merits, and even when it doesn't, they still walk away having made more money than you'd spend on getting a PhD from Yale! So don't give me the "be nice to the poor artists that worked so hard to make this movie" crap; they may have worked hard, but they were paid a king's ransom to do so, and what they made still turned out to be garbage!!
So yeah, in a nutshell, loved the review. Looking forward to reading more. :)
Thor did the same thing with Darcy's "facebook" and "ipod" lines. I felt like I was the only one in the theatre not laughing.
The movie was alright, Ill give it an A for special effects but the whole story plot and characterization was so bleh
seems to be a lot of animosity towards an otherwise typical summer blockbuster. i didn't think it was awful, the actor's performances weren't exactly true to the material, but they didn't repel me enough with any kind of brazen camp or overt seriousness. hopefully its successful enough with the non-comic reading populace that a sequel can be done that's truer. i mean a generation grew into comics from watching and loving batman and returns as a kid, which in retrospect both are really campy and strayed from the source. but those movies also gave us the animated series and down the line the current bat trilogy.
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