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Health & Fitness

Movie Review - Green Lantern

Somebody made a costly mistake and somehow it ended up at the local theater.

Green Lantern – (2011) Rated PG -13    

My late mother always said not to say anything bad about things. “Don’t dig a grave for somebody else, you might fall in it.” 

Yet, I am clearly hearing my mother right now….from afar….saying, “Every rule has an exception. WARN PEOPLE. Save them!!”

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Green Lantern is a bad movie. Somebody made a costly mistake and somehow it ended up at the local theater. 

Warner Brothers spent an estimated $150M on this movie. Why? The finance people should launch an immediate and full audit:

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  1. The plot is simple. Brash test (fighter) pilot gets special powers (from a green ring) and has to save the world from evil with intergalactic brethren. The issue is the screenplay meanders along from scene to scene trying to stitch together a story. The result is so poor it’s like watching eight movies….rather than one. There was no “guiding light” in making this movie.
  2. Poorly executed special effects (including a 3D version adding $50M to the movie’s costs for a total of $200M.) After seeing the movie, I can say I’ve seen evil. And when my kids say the floor mop in the basement is “gross," little do they know it is evil incarnate. You see, “evil” in the Green Lantern looks like my mop. (Spoiler alert:  the Author has recreated “evil” in an attached photo.)
  3. The acting is generally overacted to nearly comic proportions. Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan and Blake Lively as Carol Ferris have the potential for a Tom Cruise/Kelly McGillis Top Gun relationship (did I mention Carol Ferris is also a pilot, and is a big wig in the company Hal works for as a test pilot) …yet every time they get close, the story drags them apart. While some readers may suggest this tension is part of the story, this author suggests those readers are giving the story too much credit.
  4. $200M total for the movie, with an estimated $50-60M opening weekend (source: Studio Briefing). You know, when a movie ends and the audience lingers for a moment? You won’t find that at a Green Lantern showing. Instead, the audience sprints for the exits after enduring 105 minutes. With a little luck, this movie will show red and others like it will not be produced.
  5. How this movie made it to theaters is worthy of an investigation. Why it wasn’t scrapped far earlier in the development process is beyond me. Don’t they have regular checkpoints along the way?

Sometimes, I’ll tell friends, “wait until Netflix, Redbox, or On Demand.” Not with this movie. One version should be saved forever in the library of bad films, and all other prints should be recycled into pretty planters with some nice greenery in them. It’s the closest thing to green this movie will ever see.

Green Lantern gets a

       Red Light – Save your time and money

About the RAG scale:

       Green Light – Go and enjoy

       Amber Light – Use caution

       Red Light – Save your time and money

 

The Author

Gary Kelley has lived in Westborough since 1994. His reviews are what he would tell friends, and are not an academic analysis.

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