'Green Lantern'
Jul. 10th, 2011 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_croupierSo I finally saw the movie, and for what it's worth,
The critics have been harsh but fair. Any fan of GL will find a lot in the movie to enjoy, but it's hard to sit there and watch it without being consistently reminded what a mess of a movie it is. And, I have to say, it lacks the genuine sense of *fun* that the Iron Man and Thor movies have had so far.
The script
Movie scripts are hard. I mean, *hard*. Which is easy to forget with Joss Whedons and Peter Jacksons running around, but we never see the time and sweat they put into what they do.
If you imdb the movie and look who wrote the screenplay, there's your first problem: four Warner studio types who have worked primarily on television series (Everwood, Eli Stone, Smallville (no surprise there) and Heroes (oh god)) and who clearly haven't a clue how to tell a complete story in under two hours.
They also happen to be four writers who have zero capacity to write memorable dialogue. The language in the film gets the job done, but does so without any of the joy in language that Whedon or Sorkin always bring to the table. Hal's big speech to the Guardians, asking them for their support, is about the dullest thing I've heard in a film in some time. Reynolds, in that scene, is delivering *notes* for a moving speech, not an actual speech itself. Take a look at what is laughably called its quotes page for an idea of just how bad it is.
It also doesn't help that the audience is hit with in-depth backstory right out of the gate. Even Parallax is introduced immediately. Barely a minute in, and the movie has lost anyone who hasn't read the comics. Of all the things the Warner execs probably objected to, nobody considered this an issue? (Also, specifying 3600 sectors instead of rounding that out as 3000 came off as painfully geeky. Yes, we fans care about the details, but the script shouldn't have given a shit about us at that point--it only makes a hard-to-sell idea even harder.)
The cast
The cast bloat is dreadful. We meet Hal's brother and his entire extended family for no functional reason whatsoever. By that point we've already met Carol and the revamped Pie, so the script has already established 'human ties' for him--throwing in the family as well only serves to confuse an audience already overwhelmed by backstory. To be fair, Reynolds handles the family scenes well, but then he's done so many scenes like that now, I can't give him credit for it.
Add to that a crowd of techs, politicians, government agents, etc, etc. Amanda Waller stands out only because she's Angela Bassett, and she does a lot with what little the script gives her. Peter Sarsgaard's Hector Hammond is introduced much too late in the script, which also takes far too long to establish that he and Hal have known each other for a long time. Big opportunity there completely missed. That Hammond still comes across as interesting is entirely due to Sarsgaard giving it a real try.
Blake Lively wasn't quite as disappointing as I expected. (Kate Bosworth was still worse.) But she certainly wasn't good, and since the poor dialogue was no help at all, she basically just filled the space.
Tomar-Re and Sinestro got more screen time than I expected and that worked well for me. I wish I could say the same for Kilowog, but while he about the same amount of screen time, his part was poorly edited and much too rushed. Overall, the Oa part was probably as long as they could afford to make it, but it still wasn't long enough. If the scenes on Earth had actually been compelling to anyone not a Warner Brothers executive, that might have been less a problem than it is.
Reynolds
The script's Hal Jordan is closer to the 'real' Hal than I expected, but of course, falls short where it counts most. There are a couple scenes toward the end where Reynolds actually does go heroic, and the result made me wish they'd dumped the film-schoolish 'arc' they came up with of Hal having to 'learn' how to be a hero. The movie doesn't give itself enough time to explore that anyway, and it simply makes no sense for a guy who can fly fighter jets like Hal can when the movie opens. But I do think Reynolds can be a credible Hal (even if he'll never be my first choice) if only WB could give him a decent script to show that.
SFX
The stunts worked much better than I expected. Several shots that looked incredibly clumsy in the trailers actually came off very well when edited for the film itself. The mask still looks dumb, but in most scenes the suit looks very good. (There are about two or three scenes where the suit looked pretty bad, though.) The CGI was obviously CGI, but very few films manage to hide that, so I'm just going to shrug and move on.
They managed to avoid making the Guardians look like Smurfs. That's actually a big win there.
Another win: most of the alien dialogue, even the lines spoken by Parallax, could actually be understood. That is another big win, given how really bad most sound mixing is in blockbuster films. (Much as I like Ian McKellan as Gandalf, I wanted to fucking strangle him for whispering nearly all his goddamn lines in LOTR and then strangle Jackson in turn for failing to adjust the sound mix so you could actually HEAR what he was saying.)
Music
Yet another forgettable score from James Newton Howard. There are so very many of them now. He's had his moments--'Peter Pan' and 'Unbreakable' and definitely 'The Sixth Sense' all had memorable parts. And Howard almost even came up with an actual THEME (gasp!) for the Batman movies (not really, but ALMOST).
As for the GL score, he very nearly comes up with a heroic theme, but decided to only draw attention to it once and then only late in the final credits. Most of the actual movie just gets more of that anonymous duh-duh-duh-duh-duh crap he's already rolled out twice for the Batman movies and elsewhere.
See it or not?
If you're a GL fan, definitely. You'll fill in the parts the movie doesn't give you. There are shiny bits to make you happy, and you'll appreciate the attempts to get the canon into the film. (Carol is even given 'it's not you don't have fear but that you can *overcome* fear' distinction that actually does work for me in the current comics.) Most important, the Corps is *there*, which it wouldn't have been if this thing had been made back in the 1990s.
But be prepared to feel a little ... empty at the end. I hate to say it, but the whole thing is just not a lot of *fun*. (Which is really surprising considering how much pure fun The Mask of Zorro was, but then The Legend of Zorro sucked, didn't it? Martin Campbell is very hit-and-miss.) In fact, the movie pretty much left me the way nearly all Geoff Johns' writing leaves me. The promising parts are there, it should work, but there's no passion, no special touch that can make it all come together in a way that compels you to care.
Johns doesn't have writing credit on this movie, but it really feels like one of his projects, and it shares all of his short-comings. I hope its relative failure at the box office is the first step in DC's execs starting to understand Johns' serious limits (but I doubt it).
What should have been
A better team would have realized that this was actually the *second* movie in a trilogy. The first one would be Earth-based and focus on Hal learning basic skills with the ring, just enough to defeat Hector. Sinestro, Kilowog, and Tomar-Re could have made appearances--relieving those of us who worried the Corps wouldn't be represented--but Hal's first training would take place on Earth. A friendship with Hector could have been established right from the start, including Hector's envy of Hal (yes, have fun with green there too, if you must), which would have grounded the film in human relationships and played to Reynolds' strengths.
And since the film school writers would insist on an 'arc' for Hal, that obviously should have been him learning how to be HUMBLE, at least enough to accept that he still has a lot to learn, instead of a ridiculous arc in which he has to 'grow up' and learn courage, which makes no damn sense at all. (Failing to save Hector, his friend, would have been a great way to explore this.)
(At this point, the writers will bitch that portraying an arrogant person learning how to be humble is a much harder to sell to summer American audiences. I would then respond by asking what the fuck they think they should be getting paid for. They would then add it would have meant Reynolds going against type, to which I would respond by quoting Olivier: "It's called acting.")
There would be plenty of ominous hints in the first film that there was a lot more going on in the background, but the real introduction of Parallax would have come in the second film, and the threat *that* poses would force Hal to go to Oa for the more intense training he would need to measure up. Then we would get a much better training period with Kilowog (think Rocky II, if you must) and a slam-bang Corps vs. Parallax inter-planetary fight would tie up movie two. That would still leave Sinestro's fall for the third movie, giving Mark Strong two full movies to make you care about the guy and--bang--movie three would beat Revenge of the Sith at its own game.
But, alas, it's not to be.
The critics have been harsh but fair. Any fan of GL will find a lot in the movie to enjoy, but it's hard to sit there and watch it without being consistently reminded what a mess of a movie it is. And, I have to say, it lacks the genuine sense of *fun* that the Iron Man and Thor movies have had so far.
The script
Movie scripts are hard. I mean, *hard*. Which is easy to forget with Joss Whedons and Peter Jacksons running around, but we never see the time and sweat they put into what they do.
If you imdb the movie and look who wrote the screenplay, there's your first problem: four Warner studio types who have worked primarily on television series (Everwood, Eli Stone, Smallville (no surprise there) and Heroes (oh god)) and who clearly haven't a clue how to tell a complete story in under two hours.
They also happen to be four writers who have zero capacity to write memorable dialogue. The language in the film gets the job done, but does so without any of the joy in language that Whedon or Sorkin always bring to the table. Hal's big speech to the Guardians, asking them for their support, is about the dullest thing I've heard in a film in some time. Reynolds, in that scene, is delivering *notes* for a moving speech, not an actual speech itself. Take a look at what is laughably called its quotes page for an idea of just how bad it is.
It also doesn't help that the audience is hit with in-depth backstory right out of the gate. Even Parallax is introduced immediately. Barely a minute in, and the movie has lost anyone who hasn't read the comics. Of all the things the Warner execs probably objected to, nobody considered this an issue? (Also, specifying 3600 sectors instead of rounding that out as 3000 came off as painfully geeky. Yes, we fans care about the details, but the script shouldn't have given a shit about us at that point--it only makes a hard-to-sell idea even harder.)
The cast
The cast bloat is dreadful. We meet Hal's brother and his entire extended family for no functional reason whatsoever. By that point we've already met Carol and the revamped Pie, so the script has already established 'human ties' for him--throwing in the family as well only serves to confuse an audience already overwhelmed by backstory. To be fair, Reynolds handles the family scenes well, but then he's done so many scenes like that now, I can't give him credit for it.
Add to that a crowd of techs, politicians, government agents, etc, etc. Amanda Waller stands out only because she's Angela Bassett, and she does a lot with what little the script gives her. Peter Sarsgaard's Hector Hammond is introduced much too late in the script, which also takes far too long to establish that he and Hal have known each other for a long time. Big opportunity there completely missed. That Hammond still comes across as interesting is entirely due to Sarsgaard giving it a real try.
Blake Lively wasn't quite as disappointing as I expected. (Kate Bosworth was still worse.) But she certainly wasn't good, and since the poor dialogue was no help at all, she basically just filled the space.
Tomar-Re and Sinestro got more screen time than I expected and that worked well for me. I wish I could say the same for Kilowog, but while he about the same amount of screen time, his part was poorly edited and much too rushed. Overall, the Oa part was probably as long as they could afford to make it, but it still wasn't long enough. If the scenes on Earth had actually been compelling to anyone not a Warner Brothers executive, that might have been less a problem than it is.
Reynolds
The script's Hal Jordan is closer to the 'real' Hal than I expected, but of course, falls short where it counts most. There are a couple scenes toward the end where Reynolds actually does go heroic, and the result made me wish they'd dumped the film-schoolish 'arc' they came up with of Hal having to 'learn' how to be a hero. The movie doesn't give itself enough time to explore that anyway, and it simply makes no sense for a guy who can fly fighter jets like Hal can when the movie opens. But I do think Reynolds can be a credible Hal (even if he'll never be my first choice) if only WB could give him a decent script to show that.
SFX
The stunts worked much better than I expected. Several shots that looked incredibly clumsy in the trailers actually came off very well when edited for the film itself. The mask still looks dumb, but in most scenes the suit looks very good. (There are about two or three scenes where the suit looked pretty bad, though.) The CGI was obviously CGI, but very few films manage to hide that, so I'm just going to shrug and move on.
They managed to avoid making the Guardians look like Smurfs. That's actually a big win there.
Another win: most of the alien dialogue, even the lines spoken by Parallax, could actually be understood. That is another big win, given how really bad most sound mixing is in blockbuster films. (Much as I like Ian McKellan as Gandalf, I wanted to fucking strangle him for whispering nearly all his goddamn lines in LOTR and then strangle Jackson in turn for failing to adjust the sound mix so you could actually HEAR what he was saying.)
Music
Yet another forgettable score from James Newton Howard. There are so very many of them now. He's had his moments--'Peter Pan' and 'Unbreakable' and definitely 'The Sixth Sense' all had memorable parts. And Howard almost even came up with an actual THEME (gasp!) for the Batman movies (not really, but ALMOST).
As for the GL score, he very nearly comes up with a heroic theme, but decided to only draw attention to it once and then only late in the final credits. Most of the actual movie just gets more of that anonymous duh-duh-duh-duh-duh crap he's already rolled out twice for the Batman movies and elsewhere.
See it or not?
If you're a GL fan, definitely. You'll fill in the parts the movie doesn't give you. There are shiny bits to make you happy, and you'll appreciate the attempts to get the canon into the film. (Carol is even given 'it's not you don't have fear but that you can *overcome* fear' distinction that actually does work for me in the current comics.) Most important, the Corps is *there*, which it wouldn't have been if this thing had been made back in the 1990s.
But be prepared to feel a little ... empty at the end. I hate to say it, but the whole thing is just not a lot of *fun*. (Which is really surprising considering how much pure fun The Mask of Zorro was, but then The Legend of Zorro sucked, didn't it? Martin Campbell is very hit-and-miss.) In fact, the movie pretty much left me the way nearly all Geoff Johns' writing leaves me. The promising parts are there, it should work, but there's no passion, no special touch that can make it all come together in a way that compels you to care.
Johns doesn't have writing credit on this movie, but it really feels like one of his projects, and it shares all of his short-comings. I hope its relative failure at the box office is the first step in DC's execs starting to understand Johns' serious limits (but I doubt it).
What should have been
A better team would have realized that this was actually the *second* movie in a trilogy. The first one would be Earth-based and focus on Hal learning basic skills with the ring, just enough to defeat Hector. Sinestro, Kilowog, and Tomar-Re could have made appearances--relieving those of us who worried the Corps wouldn't be represented--but Hal's first training would take place on Earth. A friendship with Hector could have been established right from the start, including Hector's envy of Hal (yes, have fun with green there too, if you must), which would have grounded the film in human relationships and played to Reynolds' strengths.
And since the film school writers would insist on an 'arc' for Hal, that obviously should have been him learning how to be HUMBLE, at least enough to accept that he still has a lot to learn, instead of a ridiculous arc in which he has to 'grow up' and learn courage, which makes no damn sense at all. (Failing to save Hector, his friend, would have been a great way to explore this.)
(At this point, the writers will bitch that portraying an arrogant person learning how to be humble is a much harder to sell to summer American audiences. I would then respond by asking what the fuck they think they should be getting paid for. They would then add it would have meant Reynolds going against type, to which I would respond by quoting Olivier: "It's called acting.")
There would be plenty of ominous hints in the first film that there was a lot more going on in the background, but the real introduction of Parallax would have come in the second film, and the threat *that* poses would force Hal to go to Oa for the more intense training he would need to measure up. Then we would get a much better training period with Kilowog (think Rocky II, if you must) and a slam-bang Corps vs. Parallax inter-planetary fight would tie up movie two. That would still leave Sinestro's fall for the third movie, giving Mark Strong two full movies to make you care about the guy and--bang--movie three would beat Revenge of the Sith at its own game.
But, alas, it's not to be.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 11:41 pm (UTC)The one thing that really got me to say No is the after-the-credits scene I've heard about, which immediately tosses out all the great work Johns has done in making Sinestro a great villain with believable motivation. If you can't find a way to use that, to show the fall of Sinestro as he goes corrupt and then "evil," why bother using him at all?
no subject
Date: 2011-07-11 01:01 am (UTC)Even flawed as the first movie is, though, it shouldn't be too hard for the sequel to make a case for Sinestro putting on the ring due to, 1) over-confidence that he could handle it, and 2) excessive worry that the Corps is doomed if he can't.
The problem is they treat that scene like a big reveal but didn't do the groundwork they needed to make non-fans *care* about it.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-13 05:10 pm (UTC)The problem for me wasn't that I didn't care, it was that Mark Strong (plus 'evil' looks and the name 'Sinestro') never ever plays good guys. It wasn't a shock, or even a mild surprise. It was the inevitability that I'd been amazed hadn't happened before the credits.
Other than that, I thought it was a cute, comic-book-looking (ie more in vein with Fantastic Four than X-men) summer popcorn film. It didn't thrill me, and Reynolds wasn't playing anything we haven't seen before, but it was enjoyable viewing nonetheless.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-14 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-11 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-11 02:51 am (UTC)Gah, did I really just type that?
no subject
Date: 2011-07-11 01:38 am (UTC)Like I told you, I was entertained! But what you just said is what I have been saying about Green Lantern since I saw it.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-11 02:53 am (UTC)And, yeah, I don't think I was really adding much new in the way of critique. What people have been saying (definitely including you) just seemed dead on to me.