Green Lantern (12A)

Film

Fantasy films

Time Out rating:

<strong>Rating: </strong>2/5

User ratings:

<strong>Rating: </strong>3/5
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Time Out says

Tue Jun 14 2011

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

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Release details

Rated:

12A

UK release:

Fri Jun 17, 2011

Duration:

114 mins

Cast and crew

Cast:

Peter Sarsgaard, Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Temuera Morrison, Mark Strong

Director:

Martin Campbell

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Comments & ratings

Rated as: 3/5 (15 ratings)

  • 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.

    Nic Niewart Thu Nov 3 2011
    Rated as: 1/5
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  • 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.

    a bored filmgoer Sat Jul 2 2011
    Rated as: 1/5
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  • 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

    ric Wed Jun 29 2011
    Rated as: 1/5
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  • Fail

    Dwayne Paisley-Marshall Tue Jun 28 2011
    Rated as: 1/5
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  • watchable and forgetable. Rubbish 3D means 2D will be fine if you must. 4/10

    scrumpyjack Mon Jun 27 2011
    Rated as: 2/5
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  • get a cheese gratter and have intercourse with it !!!! its more fun

    rogerrabbit Fri Jun 24 2011
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  • 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.

    matt Fri Jun 24 2011
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  • matt, i draw your attention the byline which clearly reads 'time out new york', you blithering moron.

    frank Fri Jun 24 2011
    Rated as: 1/5
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  • "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?

    matt Fri Jun 24 2011
    Rated as: 2/5
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  • Green Lantern movie is a mash up of Star Wars, LOTR and TRON.

    Gort Thu Jun 23 2011
    Rated as: 2/5
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