These days comic book movies are all the rage, and there’s no shortage of them coming in the next few years either. DC Comics won big with THE DARK KNIGHT in 2008, their sequel to the 2005 BATMAN BEGINS reboot of the Caped Crusader franchise. For a brief moment it became the highest grossing movie of all time. The 2006 SUPERMAN RETURNS reboot wasn’t as well received by critics and audience members, but still brought in a ton of cash in box office receipts. But let’s face facts. Since 2008 Warner Brothers has had nothing to offer comic book fans on the big screen, and their next big efforts (Christopher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT RISES and Zack Snyder’s MAN OF STEEL) won’t hit until summer of next year. Marvel has been raking it in lately with the IRON MAN films, and now THOR and X-MEN: FIRST CLASS doing impressive numbers, and they’ve still got CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER next month. With THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and THE AVENGERS hitting next year, DC and WB needed to do something to hold themselves over until 2012. Their answer is the newest adaptation of the classic DC superhero, GREEN LANTERN. But unlike Batman and Superman, GL doesn’t have the same name recognition some of these other staple heroes have got. Couple that with reports of extravagant budget and less-than-stellar advance reaction, and many will wonder if Warner Brothers has already lost the big screen comic book war… at least for this year.

The story of GREEN LANTERN has two settings, one being of course on earth, the other being the distant planet of OA, which is home to a Corps of alien beings with lantern-charged superpowered rings calling themselves Green Lanterns. When a nefarious alien being called Parallax escapes and threatens the galaxies, Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison) of the Corps seeks him out and ends up in a perilous battle, eventually fleeing to earth after sustaining a life-draining wound. Cut to our planet and Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), a hotshot jet pilot who is irresponsible and careless, and whose behavior threatens to destroy the family flight business of his co-pilot and former flame Carol Ferris (Blake Lively). After a really bad day at the office, Hal finds himself drawn to the crash-landed Abin Sur, and is given the alien’s power ring. Eventually Jordan is transported to OA, and educated by Tomar Re (voiced by Geoffrey Rush) and Sinestro (Mark Strong) on the whole Green Lantern way of life. He learns they are protectors of the universe, and the ring chose him to be their newest recruit. Like everything else in life, Hal runs from the responsibility, telling them they’ve got the wrong guy. Back home a scientist named Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) is chosen to inspect the now dead alien body of Abin Sur for the government. While he does this, a trace of the Parallax alien infects him, and begins taking over his mind and giving him dangerous telepathic powers. Hal eventually must use his ring to protect life on earth from the unexpected threats of Hector Hammond, but Parallax wants him dead and is on his way, and if the entire Green Lantern Corps can’t stop him, what hope does Hal possibly have?

What I just wrote is about the best I can possibly simplify the complex storyline of GREEN LANTERN, one that I’m sure most kids would have a really hard time keeping up with. There’s also a bunch of supporting characters I’m not mentioning, mostly because they serve little to no purpose. Tim Robbins plays Hector Hammond’s dad, and Angela Bassett plays Hector’s lab assistant, but neither have much to do or say in the film, leaving me to wonder why they even took the gig to begin with. Martin Campbell, who I normally love, seems to have his hands a little too full trying to direct the jumpy screenplay by Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Goldenberg… yes, four guys wrote this. Maybe that’s part of the problem. On the surface this is a basic superhero origin story, complete with all the cliche moments, including the new-to-the-world hero visiting the love interest in disguise, though at least here they manage to throw a few curve balls our way so as not to show us exactly what we’d expect. Ryan Reynolds is likable enough as Hal, though never really seems that phased by all these amazing things being introduced into his life. In his scenes on OA, where there’s eye candy covered in Miracle Gro, Reynolds never seems to look the least bit frightened or impressed. He’s on an unknown alien world, and there’s hardly a sense of wonderment. That’s not right. Blake Lively, much like in THE TOWN, is surprisingly good as Carol Ferris, making the most of her moments and looking good without overselling it. Mark Strong is also interesting as Sinestro, but never incredible the way we know he can be. The effects are perhaps the most impressive aspect of GREEN LANTERN, and if the budget rumors are true ($300 million), every bit of it appears to be on the screen.

But in the end I felt like this universe doesn’t even come close to belonging in the big screen DC world we now know. Nolan’s films are on another plane from this, and even SUPERMAN RETURNS (which at least seemed like a somewhat distant relative to BATMAN BEGINS) would never mesh with GREEN LANTERN‘s setting. The weakest element in the movie is easily the Hector Hammond character, who in the end doesn’t really do much at all other than give Hal an earth-based nemesis. Parallax is the villain here, and everything else is just killing time until he sets foot in our territory. They could have left Hammond out of the script all together, which is sad as Sarsgaard is a fine actor, he just isn’t given a worthy role this time out. The oddest feeling I got from the film was that it seemed like I was watching a 1990’s superhero movie, not a modern day one. It’s not a terrible flick, just really not great. I was entertained, and there’s a lot of cool glory moments for comic book fans of the character, but in the end you’ll leave somewhat underwhelmed. Perhaps its one hour and 45 minute running time is too short for it to seem properly epic, or maybe there needed to be more development of the scenes on OA and the scenes on earth to flesh out the characters better. I honestly don’t know why it doesn’t work, but it I guess it could have been a whole lot worse. I’m interested to see if Warner Brothers can attempt a franchise with GREEN LANTERN, especially since the mid-credits scene really eludes to a proper sequel storyline, but judging the reactions of the audience I attended with, this may be Hal Jordan’s only big screen adventure for now. It’s a solid effort, just not a solid movie.

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