thoughts on The Green Lantern

Well. That was better than I expected. Seriously. I went to see this movie simply because I felt like seeing a movie yesterday; I would have rather seen Midnight in Paris, but it was playing at an inconvenient time at a theater way across town. Fortunately, I wound up enjoying it quite a bit.

As superhero movies go, I tend to see about 80% of the ones that come out, even though I've never read any of the comic books on which they are based. My favorites so far have been the Christian Bale Batman movies and the Iron Man movies. I think I like those the best because 1) the heroes don't have actual superpowers, just skills, money, and gadgets, which make their feats both more plausible and more impressive and 2) those movies tend to be more...serious? Adult? Something.

The Green Lantern is nothing like those movies. It is, however, fun. I don't really have a strong opinion on Ryan Reynolds one way or the other; in fact, looking at IMDB, I realize that I have not seen a single movie that he has starred in (besides, of course, this one). He was apparently in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle; I don't remember seeing him in it. He was also apparently on episodes of Scrubs and My Boys, which I also probably saw but don't recall. However, I liked him as Hal Jordan in this movie, and I liked how Hal Jordan's main issue is that he can't commit to things because he's afraid. Relatable. I liked Peter Skarsgaard as the villain; I also found him very interesting/relatable. Tim Robbins is good in a minor role. I think Blake Lively does fine as Hal's love interest, Carol Ferris, but I will admit that I am such a Gossip Girl fan that I have a hard time separating Lively from the character she plays on that show, Serena van der Woodsen. Serena is such a great character and Lively does such a great job as her that it almost seems weird seeing her play someone else.

As for the plot...the explanation of how/why Hal Jordan must become the Green Lantern is sort of overly complicated, as far as superhero origin stories go, but at its core the movie is about Jordan accepting the responsibility associated with the role and overcoming his fear. It's entertaining; like in Thor, there is a fair amount of going back and forth between what's going on on Earth and the trouble unfolding on a distant planet, but I will say that this held my interest quite a bit better than Thor did. I should probably admit, however, that I had a terrible, terrible headache when I went to see Thor and thus spent a lot of the movie sitting there thinking, "Why does everything have to be so loud?" I did think the ending of this dragged out a bit. However, it was fun, and I enjoyed it, and the other moviegoers at the theater I went to seemed to agree: "That was a cool movie!" said one eight-year-old boy to another as we all walked out. "I thought it was a good movie," said a forty-something tattooed man who had attended the movie with a friend and their kids, one of whom was still wearing her 3-D glasses even after we had all made our way completely outdoors. "It had more of a storyline than I expected." Yes. Yes, it did.

Bottom line: entertaining story and performances that made it even more enjoyable. I had a good time.