Green Lantern Shit-Fest Review

So I finally got around to seeing “Green Lantern” since I missed it when it was in theaters…

…and I really wish I didn’t.

Despite all the critical disdain that this big budget, big screen adaptation of the DC Comics character had gotten, my overall reaction is that it isn’t nearly as bad as so many have said it is (in all honesty, I found it way better than say, “X-Men: First Class”, which I still feel only received positive reviews because it wasn’t the shit-fest that so many had anticipated it to be), but what really pissed me off to no extent was the fuck-stickery that happened with the character and the source material in general.

Hal Jordan, played here by a miscast Ryan Reynolds (who I was never that fond of in the first fucking place), is a fearful pilot in this movie. Yes folks, Hal Jordan is a bit of a sissy. Anyone who has read their share of Green Lantern comics with Hal as the main character knows that if it’s one thing Hal isn’t, it’s fearful. That’s the whole point of being a Green Lantern, is having NO fear. I understand how this is changed here for the film’s script to tell an origin story and make Hal look like an underdog, but for fuck’s sake did they have to make so pussified here?

As far as the mythology goes, it was hit and miss. Having Tomar explain the ideas of willpower and the history of the Guardians was cool and relatively faithful, but the fact that there is so little included of Oa, the other Lanterns, and that there is little to no explanation or reasoning of Sinestro’s intentions, that most of the story comes off as being plain old fucking retarded. Oh yeah, and Hector Hammond annoyed the living fucking shit out of me too, and the alterations to the story of Parallax make me want to shit myself in frustration.

All those flaws aside, what I did enjoy about the film was the designs of alien Lanterns Sinestro, Abin Sur, Kilowog, and Tomar; while Oa looked spectacular and the ring-powered constructs designs and effects were really cool to see animated in live-action. The action scenes themselves were mostly well-done, but there’s just this emptiness about the film as a whole that just makes the whole thing come off as being little more than a missed opportunity.

It’s a shame too, because out of all of DC’s characters that aren’t Batman, the Green Lantern mythos is not only the most interesting, but it features one of the most well-crafted characters and heroes in Hal Jordan. Like I said before though, most of this nerd-rage of mine is coming from the fact that I’m a diehard Green Lantern fan, and seeing a mega-budget adaptation of my beloved GL has always been a dream of mine to see. It’s just such a shame that the end result is such a mammoth disappointment.

But hey, it’s still better than any X-Men film since 2003, or “Superman Returns”, so I guess there’s that.