Now right off the bat I will state clearly I’m a marvel boy. My childhood heroes were Spiderman, Thor, The Hulk, due to rady availability of their adventures through the British incarnation of Marvel. The Cardiff of my youth did not have ready access to the rich pantheon of DC characters. Batman and Superman comics, imported were available but not in rich supply. My awareness therefore of the DC universe was through the TV, with animated Saturday morning children’s entertainment and, of course, the camp Batman 60’s show with Adam West.
All that was to change in my late teens thanks to the arrival of Forbidden Planet and also a little comic’s supplier I discovered in Jacobs Market. The reason I’m telling you this is simple. I know nothing of the rich back history of the Green Lantern so going into this movie I was totally unbiased and I took in the experience as a movie goer .
Now I’m totally aware of the criticism levelled at this film, mostly by people who do understand the history of this character. Reading their views I fully expected to walk into a complete travesty of a movie. The trailers I must admit did nothing to excite. But Saturday was a cold damp and windy. All I wanted was to escape into a fantasy world and, well lose, myself for an hour or two.
In my humble opinion this is not Spiderman 3, this is not the Fantastic Four and it is not Judge Dredd, three films I do class as cinematic road crashes. In the same breath it is flawed and a series of missed opportunities. But I was entertained but I do wish some care had been taken with the writing. This film rigidly follows the origins template and as such certain characters came across as roughly sketched rather than fully rounded. For example we have a best friend, who seems to serve no real purpose and could quite easily have been omitted from the film without being missed. We also have a character that comes across pathetic and poorly written yet who we are asked to accept as one of the films principal villains.
Just one last comment, Marvel films have created the expectation of post credit sequence. This highlights the missed opportunity and at the same time display’s the sloppy writing at the heart of this film. Mark Strong a brilliant actor recently seen in Kick Ass plays Sinestro. Now through the initial training scenes there is an obvious undercurrent of contempt for Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern. In the closing credits he does something that clearly sets up a sequel but for it to work as a sequence it has to be earned. Nothing preceding the closing events would lead you to believe he would make the choice he does. It’s a cheat and displays lazyness in the scripting of the character.
By sticking to a rigid origin set up this film gets by on good will but in a summer glut of such movies and with Thor having already made its mark this just comes of as a reasonable diversion I liked this film, but im not in love with this film . To have such a brilliant group of actors, and not backing them up with a great solid script thats real crime for me. The bar has been set high by Marvel and this DC movie just fails to clear it.
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