Digital Comic Museum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Yoc on June 16, 2011, 07:45:16 PM
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Anyone seen this one yet?
Seems Yahoo is reporting less than good things on it.
Even to the point of lumping it in with turkeys like Catwoman and Daredevil.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/opening-green-lantern-look-5-worst-superhero-movies-224506943.html (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/opening-green-lantern-look-5-worst-superhero-movies-224506943.html)
Thoughts?
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:-/Since Green Lantern was one of my very favorite comis as a kid, I must go see this one. Post my thoughts on it later. [/color]
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I know the trailers I've seen have really, really unimpressed me with the CGI. It just looks bad. I'll probably see it eventually, but this weekend I'm planning to catch X-men First Class finally instead.
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We went to see Super 8. After the movie there was a storm so we stayed to watch GL in 3D. My wife did not expect to like GL but did and more than me. I liked GL better than Hal Jordan. I did not care for the lead up to him getting the ring. Movie itself was not great but still enjoyable. The 3D was as exciting as I would have liked for the action but the conversations was like they were sitting in the room with you.
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I liked it. It could have been better. The concept of Hal Jordan not being absolutely without fear, but possessing the ability to overcome fear was a good one and more dramatic. Could have used a few setup scenes with GL using his powers (like in SUPERMAN 1 where he patrolled Metropolis and rescued kittens and caught burglars) to make him relatable to audiences. The GL Corps did not appear in the comics till well after GL was established as a superhero on Earth, and though it's a major part of the mythology now it should have been minimized in the first movie. My problem with its overuse is that GL as a superhero on Earth makes him unique but in the Corps he's just one of thousands with the same ring, even if he is "the greatest Green Lantern of all."
DC will never be as popular in the movies as Marvel until they figure how how to make their heroes sympathetic and relatable to the general public. Chris Reeves' Superman had this, especially in Superman 2 with the odds stacked against him but refusing to give up. The current Superman and Batman are mostly self-obsessed characters, and Hal Jordan is only a few steps above the Seth Rogen Green Hornet. Marvel shows Peter Parker's self-sacrificing, Tony Stark's turn from indulgent rich guy to hero, Professor X's optimism and the X-Men's bonding, Thor's relating to humanity and now Steve Rogers' determination (falling on the grenade was a excellent character bit).
Could also have used more imaginative ring constructs than swords and guns. I did like the springs to hurl trucks at the monster (who looked like an overgrown 4th of July black snake) and the racetrack, but the latter was a bit overwhelming for his first major use of the ring; that's where a little setup could have helped.
Looks like GL2 is going to be cosmic again, with Sinestro, and did you notice the setup with Carol Ferris - the call sign on her helmet was "Sapphire."
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Since I can no longer see new movies when they are released, I missed the Green Lantern movie. I'm not sure I would have attended a showing anyway, since the material could lend itself to a very convoluted storyline or even re-invention. I was relatively fond of the silver age Green Lantern series during its first few years but as the number of super-heroic titles proliferated, I read about Hal Jordan less and less, and gave up on it completely during the Green Lantern/Green Arrow era. The only reason I'm commenting at all is because of the paucity of messages on the subject. Didn't many people see it, or did those who did have small or no praise for the film?
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I didn't bother. I like the character a lot (I jumped in in the early '80s, so my view of Hal Jordan is the powerless guy trying to piece his life back together, but was willing to basically hitchhike across the universe for a chance to help save the universe), but saw Kilowog in the previews and figured it was going to be the revisionist stuff that, to me, just isn't fun, since it treats the franchise more like cops than superheroes and focuses on boring characters like, well, Kilowog.
Add in the apparent mandate that all superhero movie franchises start with origin stories that link the villain to the hero's past (and hey, Green Lantern Sinestro's in the previews, too, wink, wink), and it just sounded like a waste of two hours and, what, fifteen bucks, these days?
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It just did not have the "heart" that is was needed.
Frankly I had no empathy for the character, for the most part, of Hal Jordan.
I think I remember a story that Alfred Hitchcock once said, "The three most important things in a film are: story, story and story".
b
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It's not as bad as the movie reviewers say it is but it could have been better. The main problem was that they crammed in too many sub-plots when they should have focused on Hal getting the ring and becoming a member of the GL Corps. I went to see it with my Mom and sister, my sister Holly is a HUGE Hal Jordan GL fan. Ryan Reynolds is a good choice for Hal.
Oh and an interesting thing I found out was that Mark Millar thought it was the worst movie ever :P
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Seen it this summer, and - well, not much to say. A story on the origins of Green Lantern, packed with lame interpretations of Parallax and Hector Hammond. Geoff Johns knows how to write with these ingredients, but the writers of the movie don't. It's basically the same scheme as the Spider-Man and Iron Man movies, so totally unoriginal these days. Not really good movie.
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I thought 10 minutes less of Hal Jordan-Carol Ferris and 10 minutes more of space, OA, and the GL Corps would have made this movie much better, either that or get Bob Downey Jr. to play Hal Jordan. This film should have soared, instead it waddled. Not sorry I saw it though, the good parts were pretty good.
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My only gripe is that it was not long enough.
I mean, lookit all the other super-hero movies coming from the major comic book publishers; Watchmen, Spider-Man, Batman Begins, Captain America, etc. They are all 2 1/2 hours long or so.
Green Lantern comes in at a disappointing 90-something minutes.
If it was beefier in the scenes where he was doing his power ring stuff, like maybe show him going on a training mission before returning from Oa, that would have been gnarly.
As it was, I thought it was an okay movie with a lot of unexplored potential.
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It wasn't such a memorable film to be honest. Such a shame :(
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Apart from The Flash t.v. movie from yonks ago and The Phantom (which I watch for a Phantom fix), I haven't watched a superhero film right through. Masked men serials do it for me but I can't get into modern superhero films. The effects look like effects, I could care less about X-Men, Spideys problems seem much more intriguing in the early comics, the G.L movie, or, at least my perception of it, seems to mix up different parts of G.L. history but I could be completely wrong. And the viewer seems to have to sit through a lot of soul searching and/or relationship problems in some of these entertainments. Anyway, I prefer my films to be around 90 minutes, a civilised duration and one which tends to be short enough to avoid numb bum syndrome.
Actually, I remember now that I saw the 1st. Superman and the 1st. Batman movies and enjoyed bits here and there. Neither of them compared well with the 1st. Spider serial or Captain Marvel or The Black Commando serial The Secret Code, or King of the Rocketmen.
Only my grumpy old man opinion.
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Ha ha - "yonks". The Flash was a tv series, you may want to look it up on AmazonUK if you just saw a tv movie version.
Most movies are crap, most superhero movies are therefore crap.
Spider-Man II was fun, I personally love the Bale-Batman movies (voice aside), enjoyed the Rocketeer (no idea how faithful it was), Thor was mediocre, GL was mediocre, Captain America was pretty good (wish they went with the Avengers costume in it), first two Superman movies were great, like the 1st two XMen and Iron Man.
I actually liked the way they handled the dreaded "Origin Story Must Be Told, But It's Boring" problem in the second Hulk movie - a montage under the opening credits, done.
I think they should generally structure superhero movies like James Bond films (i.e. the longest running film series in history I think, with multiple actors playing the role, with only one of them being a "reboot" and pseudo-origin story, the Daniel Craig "Casino Royale") - start with a big action piece, maybe the hero is fighting a couple B- or C-list villains, they fight, hero wins, go to opening credits with an origin montage, back to the film and start the story. Boom, easy.
5 year olds understand superheroes, do we really need to "explain" them with origins at this point, even to the unwashed masses?
Apart from The Flash t.v. movie from yonks ago and The Phantom (which I watch for a Phantom fix), I haven't watched a superhero film right through. Masked men serials do it for me but I can't get into modern superhero films. The effects look like effects, I could care less about X-Men, Spideys problems seem much more intriguing in the early comics, the G.L movie, or, at least my perception of it, seems to mix up different parts of G.L. history but I could be completely wrong. And the viewer seems to have to sit through a lot of soul searching and/or relationship problems in some of these entertainments. Anyway, I prefer my films to be around 90 minutes, a civilised duration and one which tends to be short enough to avoid numb bum syndrome.
Actually, I remember now that I saw the 1st. Superman and the 1st. Batman movies and enjoyed bits here and there. Neither of them compared well with the 1st. Spider serial or Captain Marvel or The Black Commando serial The Secret Code, or King of the Rocketmen.
Only my grumpy old man opinion.
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Hi Roy,
I love your idea for general movie structure!
Capt should have started with a beat down on some Hydra agents and Iron Man MUST meet MODOK someday.
Now that would be a visual! :)
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Definitely the best movie idea I've heard in years. Henceforth, when I talk about it, it shall be MY idea. Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!
Ahem.
But yeah, it's weird that nobody in Hollywood has figured out that nobody's origin is an entertaining story, and certainly isn't exciting enough to draw the audience in. I mean, I love "Superman: The Movie" to this day (and it's probably the only superhero movie I've seen that I genuinely thought worked, though as a disclaimer, I haven't watched any of the recent upsurge because their previews all looked terrible), even the scenes on Krypton, but holy crap, that's a boring half-a-movie.
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I do not think that the problem of superhero movies is actually based on the "origin" retelling. I think it makes sense because these movies are made to be seen by people who do not read comics and don't have any info on the characters. Iron man was awesome despite being an origin movie and the Cap movie was amazing in setting the character as a normal boy becoming a superhero but maintaing his "small guy with wit" attitude.
What I do want to see in a superhero movie is something I want to see in movies in general. Focus and clarity of ideas. My fan self used to think of ultra cool stuff to be seen in movies like I, don't know a superman-batman family feud a-la-70's worlds' finest where everybody makes teams of 3-4 characters and then clash. But nowadays I want to see movies that have a direction by people who understand how to make superheroes look unique and relevant. Maybe that's harder to see that 3d effects nowadays, we always need what we can't find, in the end. Marvel is a lot better than DC in doing this because they seem to believe more in their characters. Green Lantern for example was written in a cliched way that you're supposed to "like" but that made it irrelevant he could have been the red mosquito for all I cared... I did not like the latest Superman because the plot made almost no sense and there where too many distractions in the movie itself (Kevin Spacey, supe's son, his mission to find planet Crypton etc). Marvel has found a way to make movies out of their books (even with the obvious stinkers like "Ghostrider" and "Fantastic Four"), I only hope the new spider-man movie works because I really like Gwen and the trailers I've seen so far...
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I liked the GL movie. It had some weird parts, but overall enjoyable. That said, I did not like the casting of Ryan Reynolds as Hal or the woman who played Carrol Ferris (I can't remember the actress's name). I don't think they were horrible actors, but they just didn't have the look of the characters, or portray them very well (although that was probably the script's fault). I've always liked Hal (although I like Alan Scott and Guy Gardner better when it comes to my favorite GL) but Reynolds played him as too much of an arrogant pretty boy, which seems to be a character Reynolds usually plas. Now, Hal has definately been an arrogant guy, but I never got the feeling that he spent hours looking at himself in the mirror, a vibe which Reynolds seemed to give off.
Still, like I said, I enjoyed it. Sinestro was played well, and I actually thought the CG for Kilowag and Tomar Re looked cool. Its not a great superhero movie, but it was ok, and definately better than some.
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... I remember now that I saw the 1st. Superman and the 1st. Batman movies and enjoyed bits here and there. Neither of them compared well with the 1st. Spider serial or Captain Marvel or The Black Commando serial The Secret Code, or King of the Rocketmen.
Only my grumpy old man opinion.
You know, Paw, I still have to see a super-hero movie which I enjoy as much as "The Adventures of Captain Marvel" serial. The only super-hero movies I've liked (I've seen more than I should with the hope that one of them might get it right) are : "The Shadow" (which was a nice pasitiche of the character from all of the mediums in which he had appeared), "The Phantom" (which was simply good fun), "Mystery Men" (the inevitable parody which spoofed not only movie interpretations of comic book heroes but also most conventions of the genre from comics and movies), and "Iron Man" simply because Robert Downey Jr. was able to carry the movie despite a number of slow sequences and boring special effects. My second favorite Super-hero film is Donner's original "Superman" film which just barely beats out the first Batman movie serial.
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I enjoyed Green Lantern but it definitely had some flaws. I felt like it jumped around too much between Earth, Oa, space, the government, etc. It also tried to squeeze too many things into one movie, a frequent problem with superhero films. Sinestro was there but did little other than make impassioned speeches. The Corps was there but few of them were developed beyond generic faces in the crowd. I was also not a huge fan of Ryan Reynolds. I still feel Nathan Fillion would have been a better Green Lantern (the fan trailer and animated movies attest to that).
It wasn't horrible though. I loved seeing these characters on the big screen. Other than the tweaks to Parallax, it stayed fairly true to the comics. The effects looked amazing. Overall, it was an enjoyable but flawed ride. Not nearly as bad as the critics claimed but a far cry from what this GL fan was hoping for.
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One of the worst movies ever...
The "moneyshot" of OA came early in the movie... after that, it was just boring...
GPG