Green Lantern: Grading, Review, Discuss, Tracking, Sequel?

[CorporalCaptain]

Dream wrote:

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For those that haven't seen First Flight, check it out! It is very good.

I saw First Flight back in 2009. One of my big disappointments in GL (2011) is that I found First Flight better.

[Admiral_Young]

I will agree that First Flight is a much better GL movie given the time constraints they had with it.

[Sindatur]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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I will agree that First Flight is a much better GL movie given the time constraints they had with it.

I grabbed Emerald Knights off On Demand this weekend, (After several folks, including you, I believe, reccomended it) and loved it. As was said, it was much mroe coherent a story than Gotham Nights.

I'm hoping I'll enjoy Ryan reynolds' Green Lantern as much when it's released.

First Flight, eh? I'll have to look into it as well.

[Admiral_Young]

To me Vic Garber will always be the voice of Sinestro I hear when I read dialogue of his in the comics. Mark Strong was good, but Garber to me nailed his voice.

[davejames]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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I saw First Flight back in 2009. One of my big disappointments in GL (2011) is that I found First Flight better.

Agreed, although one thing I think the movie DID do better is letting us see some of Hal's surprise and amazement at all the strange, crazy-ass shit he was being introduced to.

In First Flight he seems to have such a blasé attitude toward it all, and we don't even see him learning his powers.

[JD]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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To me Vic Garber will always be the voice of Sinestro I hear when I read dialogue of his in the comics. Mark Strong was good, but Garber to me nailed his voice.

And IMO Michael Madsen was perfect as Kilowog.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Strong was great; so were Duncan and Rush. I've watched some of the cartoons but don't remember them particularly well.

[mswood]

davejames

I just... do not understand my fellow scifi fans sometimes. I frankly can't think of ANYTHING in GL that was as bad as some of the stuff in Transformers 3.

Well technically Transformers is a far, far better produced piece. Sure the story is stupid and the characterization is nearly non existent. But the whole visual aspect of the film is superior to GL.

As for story, acting, and dialogue both are fairly poor across the board.

[RAMA]

Kind of sad this movie made less than $150 million...I just didn't think it was bad enough to warrant this sort of indifference in a summer movie climate of blockbuster action movies. I watched part of Transformers 3 and it's just so stupid I can't believe anyone would prefer it over GL...and I actually LIKED the first Transformers movie mind you...

RAMA

[DarKush]

Yeah, I don't get the collapse or the pile-on. Lantern wasn't great, but it wasn't the abomination the critics made it out to be. I think the near universal negative reviews from the critics really helped sink this film. It didn't help though that the film was just average and didn't have much to stave off the heavy condemnation. I wonder if it had been released in February or March, without all the stiff competition, if that would've helped it.

[Harvey]

Gep Malakai wrote:

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Critical and box office consensus says otherwise, Mr. Champion of Populism.

In terms of box office, of course, it's clear that there's no question about to this statement. In terms of critical reaction, well, it's a 39 versus a 42 on Metacritic -- practically a dead heat.

[Samuel Walters]

RAMA wrote:

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Kind of sad this movie made less than $150 million...I just didn't think it was bad enough to warrant this sort of indifference in a summer movie climate of blockbuster action movies. I watched part of Transformers 3 and it's just so stupid I can't believe anyone would prefer it over GL...and I actually LIKED the first Transformers movie mind you...

&

DarKush wrote:

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Yeah, I don't get the collapse or the pile-on. Lantern wasn't great, but it wasn't the abomination the critics made it out to be. I think the near universal negative reviews from the critics really helped sink this film. It didn't help though that the film was just average and didn't have much to stave off the heavy condemnation. I wonder if it had been released in February or March, without all the stiff competition, if that would've helped it.

I think the difference is that TF3 has no pretension whatsoever. You know, going in, that it's going to be Big Loud And Stupid™. It's pure cinematic spectacle without regard to anything other than visual (and maybe aural) stimulation. Meanwhile, GL tried, HARD, to be something that it, clearly, wasn't meant to be. Trying to portray your test-piloting, supermodel-banging hero as an "every day Joe" is preposterous at best (true the hero in TF3 has a supermodel girlfriend, but at least he's going through what a LOT of people are struggling with these days: trying to find a job). At worst, it's the very height of pretension. As a result, people are more than willing to pile on in trashing a film that, while merely mediocre (and certainly not a failure), is so completely tone deaf to the current zeitgeist.

[davejames]

Yeah, between the critics not understanding the character or universe at all, and the comic fans being pissed that it wasn't some huge, epic space movie (alongside the fact they just don't like Reynolds as Hal), the negative buzz was just too much for it to overcome I think.

The people like me who were kind of in the middle of those extremes, and just wanted to see a fun little superhero movie, were probably able to enjoy it the most.

[RAMA]

Samuel Walters wrote:

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&

I think the difference is that TF3 has no pretension whatsoever. You know, going in, that it's going to be Big Loud And Stupid™. It's pure cinematic spectacle without regard to anything other than visual (and maybe aural) stimulation. Meanwhile, GL tried, HARD, to be something that it, clearly, wasn't meant to be. Trying to portray your test-piloting, supermodel-banging hero as an "every day Joe" is preposterous at best (true the hero in TF3 has a supermodel girlfriend, but at least he's going through what a LOT of people are struggling with these days: trying to find a job). At worst, it's the very height of pretension. As a result, people are more than willing to pile on in trashing a film that, while merely mediocre (and certainly not a failure), is so completely tone deaf to the current zeitgeist.

I knew that, but I had no idea JUST how big loud and stupid Tran3 was going to be...they literally had characters screaming for 10 secs at a time. I think half the script was screaming...

RAMA

[davejames]

Samuel Walters wrote:

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I think the difference is that TF3 has no pretension whatsoever. You know, going in, that it's going to be Big Loud And Stupid™. It's pure cinematic spectacle without regard to anything other than visual (and maybe aural) stimulation. Meanwhile, GL tried, HARD, to be something that it, clearly, wasn't meant to be. Trying to portray your test-piloting, supermodel-banging hero as an "every day Joe" is preposterous at best (true the hero in TF3 has a supermodel girlfriend, but at least he's going through what a LOT of people are struggling with these days: trying to find a job). At worst, it's the very height of pretension. As a result, people are more than willing to pile on in trashing a film that, while merely mediocre (and certainly not a failure), is so completely tone deaf to the current zeitgeist.

I didn't sense any pretention in GL at all. And I certainly don't see how Hal being a jock qualifies. The fear stuff might have been pushed a little hard, and may not have been completely believable coming from Reynolds, but it was all still fairly standard, comic booky stuff anyway (and not much different than all the cheesy "lessons" we heard in the Spidey movies).

To me, pretentious is the SW prequels, or Matrix sequels. GL doesn't even come CLOSE to that. It was just trying to be a fun little supehero movie.