Plot wise, Van Wilder gets a green power ring from a dying purple alien and makes giant Hot Wheels ramps to save people (seriously).
REASONS WHY THIS MOVIE WAS ALRIGHT:
1. The Effects- The CG suit looked pretty nifty as did some of outer space scenes. The make-up effects on Peter Skarsgaard were terrific once his head starting getting all Elephant Man style.
2. The Comedy- The jokes in this film I felt worked really well, and feel like there should have been more. It's an outlandish premise and Reynold's little comments on the ridiculousness of things helped ground the story and keep things less super cereal.
3. The Music- Standard good epic stuff that backs up the visuals here.
4. Peter Skarsgaard- The delivery of his lines is great. A great mix of creep and cheese. The most entertaining character in the whole film for sure.
REASONS WHY THIS MOVIE WAS NOT ALRIGHT:
1. The Plot- The movie does open well introducing the Green Lantern galactic world premise, but from there, dramatic tension, progression, and character development, what are those? pshhhhh idk look at this sweet green suit!
2. Blake Lively- Total babe fo sho. Acting......
3. Oa- The planet where the Green Lantern core hang out is called Oa. It's a planet with a bunch of purple and green stuff floating around bubbly shapes. It looks kinda cool, but is completely intangible and disconnecting. The characters don't interact with the environment at all, it's painfully obvious all the actors are just standing there performing their lines in front of a green screen. Where as such special effects spectacle films like The Lord of The Rings, we really get a sense of the location as a place that actually exists no matter how fantastic they are because the characters are crawling/climbing/interacting in it. On Oa everyone justs stands and floats around. It's very similar to the Star Wars Episode III syndrome of characters walking and talking in vast CGI hallways.
4. Supporting Characters- Tim Robbin's character is criminally underused. Within the scenes he does appear in, he's oddly comedic in his reactions and mannerisms. The "the ethnic friend with glasses" character was completely unnecessary, as Blake Lively's character should have just done all his scenes to further strengthen and develop the story between her and Hal. Peter Skarsgaard's scientist character Hector Hammond is the most poorly handled in the entire film. There is this back story between him, Hal and Blake but is skimmly and awkwardly handled. His progression into a bad guy is also sloppy.
5. Fun Level- A Green Lantern has a pretty sweet deal with the range of their power. They can create any physical object with their mind. You think, "hey that would be pretty sweet, I would cook me some French Toast, as I walk my dog and fly around at the same time". This does not happen. Lame.
6. Green Lantern Training- The alien Lanterns literally train Hal Jordan for two minutes and it's not even a montage. Not saying that a cheesy montage was necessary but it would have made more logical sense. Instead there are no prerequisite classes to become a Green Lantern. The ring just chooses you, and you'll be good to go with a two minute warm up and a couple of pro tips. Either way, it would have actually been cool to see a longer progression in Hal's skills as a Green Lantern, ya know, see him mess up, learn from his mistakes, improve, kick ass, that kind of thing. It just comes out way to rushed to have any sort of dramatic impact.
7. Sinestro and the Guardians- For being the smartest beings in the universe The Guardians were total dumbasses, I wanted to punch them in their big blue heads. Sinestro is just an illogical butt head. Also Sinestro... how does no one realize he's going to turn bad with a name like that. It's like if a character had the name Dr. Stana Destructro.
8. Parralax- For being the "big baddie" Parralax was missing a crucial part in getting the audience to be scared of him and raise the tension for the climactic duel with our hero. We see him sucking out a couple Green Lanterns souls but that's about it as far as him doing evil stuff. There are a lot of things we hear he does, but we are not shown. For a real impact to show how much of a threat this dude is; show him actually destroying a world and being a total evil asshole instead of all this "he said, she said" about him. Big Problem. Simple Fix.
Overall Green Lantern was a 300 million dollar missed opportunity. They had a lot of cool things in their pocket with over 70 years of publication history but failed to make a dynamic film in any sense. Despite my criticisms I did not entirely hate this film, I tried to have the best time I could with it, I only recommend this to kids and on Blu Ray once it comes out and you're wicked bored on a Tuesday night. If you want to see a good comic book movie this summer go see X-Men:First Class.
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