Green Lantern

June 16, 2011

The initial casting news already gave me a feeling of foreboding.The trailers had warned me as much. Being a fan of the Green Lantern character, I still wanted to give this movie a chance to prove me wrong. However much I wanted to like this movie though, there is one big problem. It is the star of this film. Ryan Reynolds is simply wrong as Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern.

There is nothing wrong with Reynolds' body, as he is built perfectly for this superhero role. However, his face has that constant comic smirk and expression that simply does not jive with being Hal Jordan, and especially as Green Lantern. It does not look right to see Reynolds receive the ring from Abin Sur, or to hear him utter the immortal Green Lantern creed. I felt this was a miscasting of the highest order. Nothing they did in the whole movie, including the writers and the director Martin Campbell, felt right because of this wrong decision in casting.

It is certainly ironic that the rest of the casting decisions were actually quite astute. I even felt that Mark Strong was not given enough to do as Sinestro that was commensurate with his intense star presence. Blake Lively was beautiful and fit her role of Carol Ferris like a glove. Geoffrey Rush and Michael Clark Duncan voiced Hal's GL mentors, Tomar-Re and Kilowog respectively, very well. Peter Sarsgaard was unrecognizable as creepy and nerdy Hector Hammond.

I think the chances for the success of this franchise are doomed from the start. It already needs a reboot as early as now.