4 Color Cinema: Green Lantern

So this weekend, my house was the rallying point for a bevy of nerds, as we donned our Lantern Corps shirts and ventured to the theater to go see DC's latest big screen effort, Green Lantern.

So what's the verdict?

It's a fun, entertaining movie which delivered what I wanted out of it.

Was it the best superhero movie I have ever seen?  No, not even close.  But it was exciting and kept me entertained, and I am much more eager to rewatch it than something gloomily self-important like The Dark Knight.  It's got a lot of humor and a lot of action, but it's not the super space opera epic which I think the diehard GL fans were hoping for.  It's an odd opening salvo from the newly organized DC Entertainment, unless they want to establish their universe as the lighter one?  I don't know, I'm not privy to that kind of information.

Ryan Reynolds seemed like an odd choice for Hal Jordan but he turns in a strong performance.  He's jokey quite frequently but when its time be serious, he is serious.  He has some good character moments as well.  Mark Strong is dead-on awesome as Sinestro, who is the strongest character in the movie.  At this point in his career, he is the second greatest of the Green Lanterns (after Abin Sur) and he commands respect when ever he is on the screen.  Geoffrey Rush and Michael Clarke Duncan both turn in very good vocal performances as Tomar Re and Killowag, respectively, even though they have fairly small roles.  

Blake Lively doesn't do much for me as Carol Ferris, but she doesn't embarrass herself.  She's got the ice queen thing down but she melts too frequently.  Peter Sarsgaard plays Hector Hammond well enough but the character disappears too soon.  He's got an interesting arc but it's abbreviated.  

I think that is my biggest complaint: the film is too short and somewhat rushed.  Once the story really starts to pick up and start moving, it's already time to get the climax started.  I would have rather had extended out the scenes with Hector and then the final battle by a few minutes apiece and it would have made the film "bigger."  As it stands, while I liked the film I definitely could see the flaws.

Overall, I dug the movie and will pick it up when it gets released on DVD.  But I am not rushing out to go see it again in the theater.