Green Lantern (2011)

First of all I'm a big Green Lantern fan.  The guy is my third favorite superhero.  I love the comics and think he has the most outrageous "power" one could have.  God I'd love to have a Green Lantern ring.  When I heard that they were making a movie out of the Emerald Knight I knew it would suck and yet I went to the movie to support the guy, especially with reviews talking about Green Lantern being a second class superhero (which is not true, he's a classic and completely deserving of a big screen treatment).  To my surprise the film wasn't that bad.  It's over explains way too much, never trusting its audience will "get it" but I expected an epic disaster and what I watched was an entertaining adventure.  Ryan Reynolds is fantastic as Hal Jordan and I loved the overall story.  But it is flawed and the flaws are hard to ignore.  The villains are weak and much of the set up for a sequel that will probably never get made is extra baggage.  I think this film could have been way better and that saddens me some but it was a treat watching the Green Lantern fly and maybe someday Warner Brothers will give him another shot, because he's deserving of it.  Grade: B+.

Spoilers:  What were they thinking?   Who ever designed the look of the Parallax should never work on movies again.   It was like they had just finished watching the Wizard of Oz and thought the floating head design of the fake Oz would work.  A giant zombie head floating in space?   A yellow smog like cloud engulfing a city?  That's the best you could come up with?  An audience needs to relate to their villains, they need to recognize and fear them as a tangible character, not a lousy special effect.   What might have been a scary climax became a cartoony end to an otherwise decent film.  Hokey to the max.   I'd also like to add that I found it really lazy how they went about designing the overall look of Oa.  This is supposed to be the home of the Green Lantern Corp, the source of the Green Light.  This city should look like a modern paradise, a place of unlimited scope.  Instead its a dark, rocky world that's as boring as can be.  They got the look of the Green lantern suits right, they made the Corp full of a variety of creatures, but then they decided to save on the rest.  Basically I think they should have kept the first movie on Earth and made Hector Hammond the only villain.  Hector was wasted and I'd have loved to see him become some monster Akira-style at the end.  Of course with this design team there's no telling how stupid such an effect would look like.  I have to say though that after the credits when Sinestro puts on the yellow ring I got excited.  How I'd love to see a sequel with the same cast.  I have a bad feeling though that's not going to happen, which is a shame.  I hope I'm wrong.