Retro Review of Green Lantern: Anger Management

This fucking movie.

I really don't even need to express my opinions for this film as my hatred of it is pretty well documented and canonized. This is more about explaining these very complicated and deep-rooted feelings of disdain  Many can call Green Lantern a good or a bad film on the face of it or not give a shit either way, but my feelings go far deeper than being able to make a wanking motion and move on to the next perceived failure of film making.

First, I can easily admit that there have been films that are in many ways worse than GL, pent up balls of ridiculousness like The Room or Manos: The Hands of Fate. But all of the Plans 9 that exist in the history of film make no bones about being as bad as they are, and they have thrived on cult status because of it. GL is a different type of all around bad film that disguises itself as part of a successful genre movement in the Comic Book Film fad that's been going strong since around 2008. Had this film been made pre-The Dark Knight I may have had less hatred for it, accepting it as the status quo that films like Fantasic Four or Superman Returns have demonstrated. But no, the bar was raised by films the quality of The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Hellboy, and Watchmen, to make not only decent genre films but good quality films in general. While there are other Comic Book films that do not meet this level of awesome, GL sticks out as the worst offender, and this review will explain why.

First off, it's important to note that I don't hate the concept of the Green Lantern canon. In fact, it's my second favourite comic canon around now and I know a great deal about it, and it has a lot to do with why I hate the movie so much. There are reasons to dislike the film without knowing a damn thing about the comics, but SO MUCH more to hate if you're a fan. The interesting thing is that the tendencies Comic Book movies have to differ from the source material don't bug me so much. But only if they make sense. The Joker didn't fall into a vat of chemicals in The Dark Knight because in the realist world that Batman could exist in, that would probably just kill you. There was no giant squid alien in Watchmen because that was kind of ridiculous to begin with. Kingpin was black in Daredevil because there is no white equivalent to Michael Clarke fucking Duncan (RIP). The changes made in GL that bug me don't make sense, and they're forced in for the convenience of the film makers. They cater  to a younger audience, or at least that's how they come off to me. And yeah, had I seen this movie when I was 10 I might have loved it. But then again, I loved the Tim Burton Batman films as a kid, and when I rewatched them as an adult educated nerd I kind of wanted to set Burton on fire.

Before I start throwing all of the hate on this I need to get out what I liked about the film. Having watched the film recently and more objectively, there really are some things worth mentioning. I think the strongest part of the film is what so many Comic Book movies end up mishandling: the female lead. Blake Lively as Carol Ferris was one of the strongest women in a film of this kind without being another hero a la Black Widow or villain. She was a convincing love interest while also being a useful character with some common-fucking-sense. This was something that the other DC properties were missing in their films. Both incarnations of Rachel Dawes were, while courageous and with conviction, completely naive considering their role in the film. Lois Lane in Superman Returns was just pants-on-head retarded and uber-dependant to the point of Bella-from-Twilight proportions. Carol Ferris didn't seem to have that incompetency. It doesn't hurt that Blake Lively is all the way gorgeous, despite what my darling Mandi says about her (the term 'butterface' gets thrown around a lot).

Peter Sarsgaard should also win an award for being the most self-aware actor of the cast. He was the only one who seemed to know how ridiculous this script was, and he just had fun with it anyway. His turn as Hector Hammond was the perfect mix of campiness and insanity for this film. It reminded me a lot of Arnold as Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin in that he was there because, well, why not, and he didn't give a solitary fuck about what was going on. Everyone else in GL is so serious business throughout the whole endeavour, but Hector was all smiles and LOL MY HEAD IS HUGE! This movie is a very dark two hours for me, but he makes me smile.

So for those keeping count, there are exactly two things that I like about this film that are unaltered by other elements of the film. Both are characters. One because she is hot, and the other because he could not give less of a fuck. That's it. All downhill from here. Put on your hardhats, cuz I'm gonna drop some heavy knowledge.

Let's talk about Ryan Reynolds, shall we? I really do appreciate his work often enough but he was clearly the way wrong choice for Hal Jordan, and was depicted as such. I loved his dramatic work in stuff like Smokin' Aces, Waiting is one of my all-time favourite comedies, and he's the only watchable thing about Blade Trinity. Reynolds is a good pick for a superhero, just not Jordan. Reynolds is at his best as an overconfident, arrogant jackass while also being charismatic and charming in a smart-alecky way. Pre-Lantern Jordan does have some of those qualities, but he isn't much of a charming rogue or smartass. Jordan is notoriously arrogant, a symptom of being the bravest man ever while also being, well, dumb. His big talking point supporting the theory that he's the best of the Green Lanterns is his courage, and thank God because he's dumb-as-a-post and just as creative because his constructs reflect that. At least the film reflects this well enough. I need to hit these guys? I'll make a big fist! I need to move a crashing helicopter? I'll recreate the Hot Wheels track I was playing with yesterday! This comes out a lot when GL interacts with Batman, who is legit one of the smartest people on Earth. Batman begins crafting a plan. GL runs in and punches people with his giant fist. Batman facepalms. That's the gist of it.

Back to the problem with Reynolds:  if he was going to be GL, I would have preferred it if he was full-on Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern, not Ryan Reynolds pretending to be someone else as Green Lantern. He seemed half-committed, and it ended up not even half as entertaining as I know he can be. He made me laugh with every line of script from Waiting and Blade Trinity. If that was the guy we saw in GL, I would have loved it because I couldn't not. He half-assed the shit out of this role like he was afraid of being scolded for being himself. He was trying to be the light-hearted smart-alec and serious business at the same time, and it just confused me. If this movie was about Guy Gardner, Reynolds would have won a damn Oscar for the performance because the personalities are identical. This was just poor casting and I knew it from the get go. My choice: David 'Angel' Boreanaz. If you're looking for the best portrayal of Hal Jordan's personality type, just watch Angel (season 5 is probably the best example of it). He's arrogant, and a bit of an ass at times, but doesn't throw it in everyone's face. He says he gets shit done because he knows he can, and he does. Also, Angel is the best.

I was flabbergasted by how bad this film looked at times. Seriously, it was awful. There is no reason why the faces of Ryan Reynolds and Mark Strong (Sinestro) should look superimposed onto CGI suits, even if they actually were. Every time Jordan is on Oa, I'm reminded of the first Terminator and the scene where Arnold cuts out his eye when it's clearly a mannequin head. This looks similar in that, while it looks like Ryan Reynolds, it's clearly a CGI version of his face. That is RIDICULOUS. You mean to tell me that several years after three Star Wars movies were made with every single goddamn scene laden with CG scenery, props and characters, and the real people in those scenes still look like they're human fucking beings, you can't have Van-fucking-Wilder stand in front of a green screen and talk to air for a little bit? There is twenty solid minutes where Hal is kicking it around Oa with Tomar-Re, learning about all this shit (that apparently the ring has already told him because SCIENCE), where his face does not entirely match the dialogue and looks more like a kid from that Polar Express movie than Ryan Reynolds. What's even worse is that it happens again...on Earth! Where real people congregate! When he shows off his suit to his affirmative action friend in his apartment, the textures of his face become that of a Pixar character. I don't fucking even. It's a special kind of lazy where, instead of having a real life person wear a suit on screen, you just implement a cartoon in his place for the sake of a visual effect. Hollywood, you are doing it all the way wrong. Another twist of the knife comes from the fact that this was an improvement. The film was finished at an earlier date, set to be released months before it actually was released but was delayed in order to improve the visual effects that weren't screening well. Part of me wants to see that original cut just to laugh my ass off.

And what was with the suit anyway? I'll take the sacrificing of Spandex for functional leather like in X-Men or Daredevil because like I said earlier, deviating from the source material makes sense sometimes...but this? It's explained that the suit is a manifestation of will constructed by the ring, which isn't far from the truth in the comics; but why does the suit have to look like a reject from the Masters of the Universe toy line from the 80's? His chest glows! His mask appears and disappears randomly! His eyes change colour for some fucking reason! Batteries not fucking included! I'm not sure who thought that GL was better than Batman, Superman and the like to the point that they get to re-innovate how they do superhero outfits but they were wrong, and ended up overcomplicating some fairly simple elements of the Comic Book movie.

In terms of inaccuracies in regards to the comics, my frustration inherent rage can be summed up in one word: Parallax. Every time I begin to talk about this I start out fine, but then soon descend into angry grunts and arm flailing, so maybe typing this out will be easier. In the comics, Parallax is the sentient personification of fear, the attribute most in conflict with will, which is where the Green Lanterns draw their power from. While it does have a form or aspect that it is seen as, it isn't an actual physical being. It mainly affects the physical world by possessing living things, as it did in its introduction by possessing Hal Jordan and forcing him to go on an intergalactic-killing-spree throughout the universe. It cannot be killed or hurt. No shooting missiles at it. No punching it into the sun. Oh, and it looks like this:

Now, compare this quick summary with what the movie tells us what Parallax is: the translucent-headed guardians tell the audience that one such guardian thought it was a wild idea to start drawing power from fear as opposed to will; he did that, and went mad with power and became a ginormous cloud monster named Parallax. It got buried in a planet but broke out because it sucked in the fear of some hapless astronauts. So, in a way, this big bad is like Santa Claus, only instead of feeding on people believing in him, he feeds on fear. Might not be the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a villain, but nowhere near close what he's based on. Parallax is, for all intents and purposes, a god of fear. It doesn't matter if you fear him or not; the fact that fear exists in the universe is a by-product of him existing, and doesn't make him more or less powerful. He just is. You could destroy the vessel he's using, sure, but that might only slow him down. And hey, maybe that's what happened in the movie and something just got lost in the translation, but if so, then TAKE THE TIME TO EXPLAIN THAT. They took time enough to give this bullshit backstory on the rogue guardian, but can't say 'yeah, Parallax is a thing that possessed a guardian, and is now a cloud.' Then maybe some of the Lanterns could have deduced that if one were to punch the guardian-cloud vessel of Parallax into the fucking sun, its momentum would be lost and we can all breathe easier. That would have been five minutes of dialogue and I would have been happy as a pig in shit if it happened. It didn't. Parallax is a cloud that got punched into the 'Chekov's gun' of a sun by an arrogant douchebag. If Green Lantern 2 happens, and ret-cons the Parallax origin into being what it should be, I might go all the way out of my entire damn mind. 

So now we go from the 'historically inaccurate' bit of the review to the 'mind-blowing lack of common sense' portion. There are huge plot points in the film that go beyond being plot holes and in to just plain stupid. Accurate to the comics or not, there's shit that happens in this movie that does not make sense. Not only that, it also goes against other shit that has already happened in the movie. Need examples? I got you covered...

So the first one is more of an inaccurate-to-the-book thing, but also applies to being contextually stupid scriptwriting. So Jordan gets the ring, he's brought to Oa for training and after about 15 minutes of screen time, he quits the Corps. He tells his trainers to go fuck themselves in so many words, takes the power ring and goes home. Um...nope? Hal Jordan is an idiot, sure, but he is stupid brave and just as arrogant. Arrogant enough to know, in his heart of hearts, that he can get anything done. He'd go through the training no problem and walk out ready to drop bombs. But Ryan-fucking-Reynolds says 'nope' and splits. Kind of a bitch move, methinks. Also, it doesn't even come off as fear. He doesn't seem afraid to go through the training, he's just being lazy! He's overwhelmed by the circumstances because who wouldn't be? That's fine. That is what the training is for, you fucking scrub! He's just like 'ugh, this is all a lot of work,' and takes off. So now the Green Lantern Corps are one ring short, one man down, and about to go up against its biggest threat. This is not something that Hal Jordan would do. In fact, it is precisely the opposite of what Hal Jordan would do. The troubling part is that he had done the right thing earlier in the same fucking movie! He goes into a flight demonstration against some test planes, figures he can beat them, and does. He might have gone about it in a fucked up way, but he took care of business that he had no right to be able to take care of. But a little bit of personal training is too much for him? Go fuck yourself, Jordan. 

Next up, we have Sinestro, who is one of the top Lanterns, go to the guardians and say 'hey, Parallax is fucking our shit up. Maybe if we used fear instead of will, fought fire with fire, we'd be able to take him down a peg or two.' The guardians thought this plan was jolly good and gave the go-ahead. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME! To explain my frustration, see my summary of movie Parallax's origins. A guardian wanted to use fear instead of will and got fucked up because of it. They knew this, and had already explained it in the movie. So why in the blue hell would they allow a yellow ring to be made? Did they not give a shit, since it was just one of their foot soldiers doing it instead of another guardian? Absolutely pants-on-head retarded. Also, what was the idea? Will is in direct conflict with fear. The bad guy is feeding on fear. Wouldn't using fear as a weapon against him only make him more powerful? But what the fuck do I know, right? 

Anyways, fast forward to the end of the film. Jordan punches Parallax into the sun (*sigh) and all is well. If I were the guardians, I'd put a stop to the manufacturing of the yellow ring as it's no longer needed, right? Maybe stop another Parallax incident from happening? Not so much, as a scene part way through the credits shows Sinestro putting on the yellow ring and having his outfit change. Hopefully, that was the last scene of this franchise but if not, it was the worst introduction to one of the best antagonists that the DC universe has to offer. Well done, good job. 

A third and final example for you, dear readers: we have Hal Jordan return to Oa having realized that Parallax is going to swing by Earth to stock up on power before bringing the thunder to Oa (because he's a cloud, get it?). He goes up to the Guardians with Sinestro in tow, explains the situation and asks for help. Well, I guess the Corps get to return the favour to Jordan's quitting earlier because the guardians could not give a fuck, much less another Green Lantern to help out. They send Jordan on his merry way to solo this shit. I get not wanting to help Jordan. I understand not wanting to devote resources to help out a scrub that gladly left you in a bind not days before. But keep in mind that protecting people IS THEIR FUCKING JOB. This is why the Green Lantern Corps exists, to protect planets from interstellar harm. Also, this is the big bad we're talking about. They had been several steps behind Parallax throughout the movie and only ever caught up with him while he was finishing up decimating an entire planet worth of life for power. AND Earth was his last stop for power before taking a pot shot at Oa. They were not going to get a better shot at ending that cloud bastard than this. And they were at full strength with Jordan back, or at least stronger than they were without him. They had no real reason to turn Jordan down except for being bitter. It's a good thing Jordan knew stuff about big things being around the sun or else things would have ended rather differently for the little blue guys. In the end, I think that the guardians felt about Jordan the same way I feel about this movie: that it can goooooo fuck itself. 

February was a rough month. Rough enough that my darling Mandi and I have redubbed it 'Fuckuary'. Now that the smoke is cleared and we're back on track, I'm going to start trying to regulate this blog so that I'm posting more regularly. This is the beginning of that, which is neat because this particular post has focused a lot of the frustrations I've had over the past few weeks and directed it at a film that I've been frustrated with for the past few years. As a movie lover and comic fanboy, I truly believe this is one of the worst Comic Book movies ever made. It's rumoured that a Justice League film is a thing that's happening in lieu of the success of The Avengers, and that Ryan Reynolds may have the part as Hal Jordan again. I'm not happy about it, but whatever. Thankfully, films like this are less common than the awesome movies that this genre puts out. If this trend can continue, then I can sleep well knowing that this film can be forgotten or even better, redeemed. 

Go fuck yourself, Green Lantern.

*drops mic on stage.*

Knight Owl