But don't expect it to be a hallmark achievement, either.
The film had a lot of potential, given its all-star director and cast, as well it's $200 million dollar budget, but it appears Warner Bros. was so concerned with people not taking the "goofy-looking" aliens seriously, they cut out all of the really interesting moments with the Corps., explained the entire background of the Green Lanterns in stilted, exposition-heavy monologues, and filled the rest of the film with cringe-inducing "jokes". A big problem with the script is the constant shifts between slapstick humor and violence (humans get thrown through brickwalls without much harm coming to them) to "Schindler's List" style drama. Whole planets are destroyed without so much as a blink of an eye.
The acting, while very good in parts (performances that really shone were those from Peter Sarsgaard, Ryan Reynolds, and Mark Strong), really isn't given room to breathe by the script. Hal spends the majority of the film either being an arrogant ass or whiny bitch; Carol Ferris (played by Blake Lively) has some very cheesy dialogue that is delivered with no emotion; Hector Hammond is given a heart-wrenching backstory, and then the next minute turned into a power-hungry, stalking creeper who is constantly screaming as if he is receiving an enema; and the other high-profile actors (Tim Robbins, Angela Bassett, Geoffry Rush, and Michael Clark Duncan) are reduced to glorified cameos with no substance or import.
However, the single-worst aspect of this movie is its villain, Parallax. Its origin is cliché, its lines laughable, and its mode of destroying the universe stupefying (one planet-consuming cloud in a comic book movie wasn't enough?). It lacks the presence and gravitas of other graphic novel villains this summer, and doesn't appear even remotely threatening.
The only true saving grace of this movie are the effects, which are some of the best I've ever seen. Clearly the budget didn't go to waste in the "flash" department (too bad is was sorely lacking in the script). The concept and delivery of the energy-created suit and its constructs are stunning, as is the integration of Ryan Reynolds and Mark Strong into the completely CGI environments on Oa. No off-looking bobbing-heads here. Every alien seen on screen is surprisingly creative and realistic (which is amazing given how many sci-fi films like this there have been over the years), and the organic feel of Oa is a nice deviation to the typical metallic and cold look most outer-space epics seem to have.
All in all, I was expecting much, much more from Campbell & Co. However, I knew that having four screenwriters on this movie was a very big mistake (especially since some of them worked on the holy grail of comic book adaption fails, Smallville), and in the end even the pitch-perfect performances and some of the best CGI in movie history couldn't save this train wreck of a film.
The film had a lot of potential, given its all-star director and cast, as well it's $200 million dollar budget, but it appears Warner Bros. was so concerned with people not taking the "goofy-looking" aliens seriously, they cut out all of the really interesting moments with the Corps., explained the entire background of the Green Lanterns in stilted, exposition-heavy monologues, and filled the rest of the film with cringe-inducing "jokes". A big problem with the script is the constant shifts between slapstick humor and violence (humans get thrown through brickwalls without much harm coming to them) to "Schindler's List" style drama. Whole planets are destroyed without so much as a blink of an eye.
The acting, while very good in parts (performances that really shone were those from Peter Sarsgaard, Ryan Reynolds, and Mark Strong), really isn't given room to breathe by the script. Hal spends the majority of the film either being an arrogant ass or whiny bitch; Carol Ferris (played by Blake Lively) has some very cheesy dialogue that is delivered with no emotion; Hector Hammond is given a heart-wrenching backstory, and then the next minute turned into a power-hungry, stalking creeper who is constantly screaming as if he is receiving an enema; and the other high-profile actors (Tim Robbins, Angela Bassett, Geoffry Rush, and Michael Clark Duncan) are reduced to glorified cameos with no substance or import.
However, the single-worst aspect of this movie is its villain, Parallax. Its origin is cliché, its lines laughable, and its mode of destroying the universe stupefying (one planet-consuming cloud in a comic book movie wasn't enough?). It lacks the presence and gravitas of other graphic novel villains this summer, and doesn't appear even remotely threatening.
The only true saving grace of this movie are the effects, which are some of the best I've ever seen. Clearly the budget didn't go to waste in the "flash" department (too bad is was sorely lacking in the script). The concept and delivery of the energy-created suit and its constructs are stunning, as is the integration of Ryan Reynolds and Mark Strong into the completely CGI environments on Oa. No off-looking bobbing-heads here. Every alien seen on screen is surprisingly creative and realistic (which is amazing given how many sci-fi films like this there have been over the years), and the organic feel of Oa is a nice deviation to the typical metallic and cold look most outer-space epics seem to have.
All in all, I was expecting much, much more from Campbell & Co. However, I knew that having four screenwriters on this movie was a very big mistake (especially since some of them worked on the holy grail of comic book adaption fails, Smallville), and in the end even the pitch-perfect performances and some of the best CGI in movie history couldn't save this train wreck of a film.
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