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Green Lantern (2011)

Director: Martin Campbell

Time Out rating

Average user rating

32 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Hope springs eternal for the modern Hollywood superhero movie: someday, somehow, someone is going to make a real stunner. (Law of averages, right?) You feel a twinge of that let’s-do-better ambition at the start of ‘Green Lantern’, as the camera soars over a digital, yet still beautifully designed, moonscape where three alien life forms stumble on something unholy. The scene might have been transplanted directly from a 1950s space adventure like ‘Forbidden Planet’. But no sooner are we introduced to giant-floating-head supervillain Parallax – who’s out to destroy the Lanterns, the universe’s cadre of guardians – than the film takes a ruinous detour to Earth.

Enter square-jawed daredevil Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), he of the Ken doll physique and perfunctorily addressed daddy issues. The guy needs a calling, dammit! And boy, does he get one after being summoned to the side of a fallen Lantern, who gifts him his laser-lightshow ring and cosmos-protecting powers. Time to kick it into high gear, right? Uh, sure, just after we attend to Hal’s nonstarter romance with plastic girl Carol Ferris (Blake Lively, who isn’t). Oh, and there’s this other supervillain we gotta deal with – Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard, made up with a hilarious John Carpenter-esque bald pate).

Hal eventually travels to the mystical corps-HQ planet of Oa for some sequel-ready one-upmanship with baddie-in-training Sinestro (Mark Strong), and the film’s very talented director, Martin Campbell (‘Casino Royale’), handles these otherworld scenes, as well as the finale’s tentacle-tastic Parallax fight, with expected aplomb. But whenever this Lantern returns to terra firma (too often), its imaginative flights are ground beneath the DC overlords’ demographic-pandering heels.

Author: Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York

Time Out London Issue 2130: June 16 – 22, 2011

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User reviews of this film

Nic Niewart said...

Posted on Nov 03 2011 18:22 There are some movies you bring back and no matter what happens- the dog barking, the phones ringing, emails beeping;you have to watch it to the end without a break, no matter what time of day of night- well,- this isn't one of them. It's confused, the prelude was too boring to comprehend and just not interesting and there were whole chunks of the film I have no recollection of watching. Perhaps I was abducted during watching it and sent to galaxy 5, sector 9, quadrant 7. A pity as the budget could have been used beneficially to solve many problems around the world.

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a bored filmgoer said...

Posted on Jul 02 2011 18:39 I really disliked this film. It's a shame, because the actors were mostly great (although Blake Lively was dreadful - too busy pouting to bother acting, and I didn't care what happened to her, which took away from the drama) and some of the effects were fun. But the plot was daft. There seemed to be big holes all over the place and the dialogue was too expositional. And there's an uncomfortable feeling of goodness being synonymous with prettiness and badness with ugliness that I didn't like either. Peter Sarsgaard's character was by far the most interesting, but that plot line got ruined. And all the stuff about human beings knowing their weaknesses etc was silly - some annoying pilot guy telling ancient wise immortals how to go about their business of fighting evil? Maybe I'm being too harsh on a bit of fluff.

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ric said...

Posted on Jun 29 2011 14:53 Epic fail
(please remember no stars will be treated as unrated!!)
Too many time wasters getting handbags out each other on timeout,get a life! Its about the movies

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Dwayne Paisley-Marshall said...

Posted on Jun 28 2011 12:25 Fail

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scrumpyjack said...

Posted on Jun 27 2011 20:52 watchable and forgetable. Rubbish 3D means 2D will be fine if you must. 4/10

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rogerrabbit said...

Posted on Jun 24 2011 15:33 get a cheese gratter and have intercourse with it !!!! its more fun

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matt said...

Posted on Jun 24 2011 14:12 hi there frank. what a fine display of internet hard man hyperbole. i doubt you call many people blithering morons to their faces. am i right? besides mate, i guess the fact that this was published in time out london evaded you? lets have us a fine interweb row from behind the safety and anonymity of our monitors. lolz. may the best douche win.

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frank said...

Posted on Jun 24 2011 12:54 matt, i draw your attention the byline which clearly reads 'time out new york', you blithering moron.

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matt said...

Posted on Jun 24 2011 12:36 "a digital, yet still beautifully designed, moonscape"
Why is "digital" somehow less valuable than a hand painted environment or set extension? Remember how crap those looked anyway? Visual effects are how mainstream films are made these days and are no more or less an illusion than painted glass scenery, glass roto and compositing or any of the other outmoded post production technologies. Mainstream films are not supposed to offer a cinéma vérité experience, with itself is a tiresome contrivance anyway. Lets not forget that visual effects studios are the most succesful sector of the British film industry thse days too. Are film reviews here simply a platform for Time Out journalists to broadcast their Islingtonian or Hoxtonesque senses of superiority?

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Gort said...

Posted on Jun 23 2011 20:13 Green Lantern movie is a mash up of Star Wars, LOTR and TRON.

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long cat said...

Posted on Jun 23 2011 10:41 One of the best Super Heroe movies in years. Stunning action and likeable characters. Ryan Reynolds is a perfect sdtar for this role and the girl in it Blake Lively looks stunning. The sets are fantastic so it is a visual feast and some subtle humour adds up to one hell of a good movie. 6 Stars if possible. Keith Uhlich has missed the point in his review. I think he sees too many movies to really enjoy a fun movie without looking for faults or weak acting. Lighten up man!

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Rohne hill said...

Posted on Jun 22 2011 18:37 I think you've very much missed my point.
I have no problem with someone enjoying a film, it's when hyperbolic statements come into the fray.
In this case the "New standards " line which I was directly reacting too.
Statements like that go past personal subjectivity and have to be backed up in terms of, for want of a better word, "quality".
It's fine to enjoy a Western for instance, but when you turn around and declare (And not using all the softpeddling of IMHO etc) that it's the Best or Greatest (Your "Favourite" would be a different mater entirely) western made, well then you need to back that up in the context of the other great westerns.
Furthermore that's where the "Informed" (I never specifically said "smart") bit comes in, becuase you've got to watched and fully understood most of the considered best/greatest Westerns before you're even make that statement.
I do love the old Paul Dini Batman work, and Kevin cinroy still does the perfect Batman voice, but personally The Dark Knight was more than just a Batman adaptation.

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Ty Cobb said...

Posted on Jun 22 2011 04:56 He isn't entitled to his opinion unless it's "a informed smart one" you say? That's BS. Even, If you don't think it was too good he obviously loved it, Hell I see people that loathe the Nolan batman's on the internet. And they make a point to a degree TDK, Is a GREAT crime movie with costumes. The best represntation of all these characters is Animated anyway to me. This is why Batman:TAS is still so highly thought of today.Hell there are probably people out there in this world that think Green Hornet is Epic, but if everyone loved exactly the same stuff world would be boring.

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Rohne Hill said...

Posted on Jun 22 2011 01:42 @Mauricio.
"A new standard in superhero films"?
Did you just not watch the first Superman film, The Dark Knight and Batman Begins, and to a lesser extent, X-Men 1& 2 , Iron Man 1, hell even the childishly adapted V for Vendetta or the pornographically adapted Watchmen and I don't know Dick Tracy?
People really aren't entitled to their own opinions, but they are entitled to their own "informed" opinions.

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Phil Ince said...

Posted on Jun 20 2011 22:09 I rather like this review. And it is quite funny that the girl (?) who's making all the noise and the 5 star reviews doesn't ge the joke, The reviewer is saying - Anus - that the reason this film is so bad is that it was made for people like you.

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