Review: Green Lantern

Available over at the Herald.

Green Lantern. This movie. There is almost nothing to say about it. Ryan Reynolds, who I’m pretty ambivalent about, is okay in a character who is extremely boring, the embodiment of every test pilot ever. He’s got to fight this fog-monster with a fivehead who’s apparently destroying entire worlds, but they’re too dull to actually show him/it doing so. Trust us–Parallax is killing everybody. He’s a bad dude. And he can’t be stopped.

Green Lantern is one of those movies where I just never really have a grasp on how all this shit works. I get that green represents will and yellow represents fear, but where does the relevant strength of each come from? If Parallax is powered by absorbing fear, wouldn’t he get even more powerful when he’s actually threatened and thus terrified of being destroyed? What’s up with that, logic? What’s up with that?

But you really only see that kind of serious nitpicking when the rest of the movie isn’t succeeding. If you’re laughing or you’re scared or you’re really rooting for somebody to overcome the odds arrayed against them, you don’t spend a lot of time poring over these logical flaws. That, to me, is an almost sure sign you’re watching something that isn’t that great. It’s certainly a warning sign. Look out for it.