Begin at the beginning...

Somebody I was talking to told me that they hated origin stories. I was confused because doesn't an origin story help set up important characters? Doesn't an origin story take the audience from knowing nothing of what they are walking into, to giving us all the details that we need to form an opinion of the character and their ways? I don't understand how somebody, especially a person that claims to enjoy superhero movies, can even say that they hate origin stories. After all, it all has to begin somewhere. 


I don't mind a good origin story movie when it comes to superhero films. After all, how do you introduce that character to a new audience, or an audience that doesn't know much about that character? Sure, you can take the approach that dropping the audience into the story forthright will make it more appealing. And maybe it could, to some of the audience. However, not giving anybody a place to start with is dangerous, and may lead to even more issues with the movie.

How'd you like a nice Hawaiian punch?

When The Green Lantern came out, I shared my view of this movie in a recent post. It wasn't a bad film, per se. It just didn't have anything terribly good to offer. It was an origin story, showing Hal Jordan's journey from a reckless pilot to a superhero saving the day. This movie had the task of giving us Hal before, during, and after he becomes this new hero. Some of it worked, Sinestro for one, and some of Oa as well. But most of it didn't. And therein lay the problem here. GL is an origin story that causes troubles, because at the end of the film, you still don't really know who Hal is, what the Green Lantern can truly do, and who the Corps really are. There are more questions than answers, and that feels like a cheat and a cop-out of sorts.

Green Lanterns...um...lite?

"In Brightest Day..."

Oh, Green Lantern.

I know that I am going to be pretty harsh on the movie soon, and for the most part it's warranted. However, I still enjoyed the movie, dispite a lot of its flaws.

So what's good?

Let me get this out right now: Ryan Reynolds does a very good job as Hal Jordan. He takes the character that he is given, and really helps push it to that level that it really shines in the movie itself.

Mark Strong's Sinestro, who is given very little to do, is great. The chracter design, the acting, the way he takes control of the scenes he is in is great. His talk of having no fear and showing how to use the ring to his standards is really well handled. You can just feel him looking through and judging Hal, without even changing his expression. Without a word, he says loads. So good.

I liked Parallax, even thought it wasn't developed too well. The design was interesting, and the backstory was cool. Too bad I didn't get much else. (as an observation, had Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer done something similar to this character design, that movie would not have sucked quite as much as it did. That little change could have easily made the movie, at least, tolerable.)

The Guardians are pretty cool, but they don't do much in the comics, and they don't do much here. Still, their design is pretty neat, and the way they are presented is very epic, so it's got that going for it.

Some of the Corp character designs are pretty awesome as well. I love seeing what people come up with when they are being creative.

The voice acting, and subsequent CGI work, for Tomar-Re (Geoffrey Rush) and Kilowog (Micheal Clark Duncan) is very good. I like these character designs. Sure they were animated, but they still were cool to watch. No Jar-Jar here. I hope that there is more of them in the following films.

The use of humor is handled very well. After all, there is a lot of darkness here, so it really helps that they were able to work in some laughs for the audience. Most of it is at the expense of Hal, but that's alright.

When Hal uses the ring, especially later on, it's pretty darn cool. His suit in action is not bad.

The quick end sequence! Bring on the sequel! 

"In Blackest Night..."