Day 1: Green Lantern (2011)

A quirky film for first choice, I know, but I have eagerly been awaiting it's release for over a year now and I feel it's well-advertised enough to be a proper first film pick.

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Tim Robbins, Blake Lively
Directed by: Martin "Casino Royal and the lesser Quantum of Solace" Campbell

The Positives:

- Peter Sarsgaard. He was creepy. He was demented. He was fun. Sarsgaard should be more famous than what he is, and unfortunately I feel that this movie won't put him on too many people's maps. He's performance is worth praise though.
- Mark Strong! They might not have gotten Sinestro's comic book story correct, but dammit if Mark Strong didn't work with what he got.
- Michael Clarke Duncan and Geoffrey Rush were entertaining as Hell, even if they only received four minutes screen voice- time collectively
- The make up for Abin Sur and Sinestro was fantastic.
- I'm insanely glad that Hal Jordan used a plethora of green entities instead of just focusing on one, even if that did cause a few stupid objects to slip into the film (See below).
- If there was a 'meh' section, this next bit should probably be placed under that considering this isn't necessarily a positive note. However, it must be said that Blake Lively wasn't nearly as bad as the trailers suggested. She wasn't good mind you, but she's no Megan Fox.
- On that note, this movie isn't nearly as bad as the critics are making it out to be. It's not 'The Dark Knight' good, but it's definitely no "Ghost Rider"

The Neagtives

- But when this movie's negativity shows, it feels worse than 'Ghost Rider'.
- What the fuck Tim Robbins? What. The. Fuck.
- Ryan Reynold was an exceptionally good Super-Van Wilder. He was a horrible Hal Jordan though. At least he looked the part.
- Sadly, that doesn't prevent him from becoming the most entertaining part of the film.
- Everybody who knows me knows I HATE bad/overused CGI with a passion. If done right it's very enjoyable, but for every Star Trek and Scott Pilgrim there's a Hulk and Lost in Space to piss me off even more. Green Lantern gets a good portion of the CGI right, but every once in a while, notably when Paralax is on screen, the shit hits the fan and takes me out of the movie. One very noticeable moment of bad CGI involves what looks like Ryan Reynold's disembodied head hovering over a green screen as a video game cutscene plays behind him.
- The Story does what it can with the character I suppose. I mean, you have sixty years of background info, I guess one can only cut and paste so much of it to make a proper okay script. That might be why this film feels so disjointed.
- FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK that built-in Hot Wheels advert that randomly shows up during a major action sequence. Everybody who has seen this film knows it was only thrown in there so toy companies can make thousands of race-track play sets to pawn off onto vulnerable children. Not only was that shameless product placement, but it made no damn sense in the film. There were hundreds of better ways to rescue a helicopter than to give it wheels and race it on a plastic green-energy track. Hell, a giant green baseball glove would've worked better.
- This has very little to do with the film but instead with Green Lantern himself. If this is the DC Universe, and the ring does select a guardian based on his/her will-power, wouldn't Bruce Wayne, Superman, or Wonder Woman have been a much better choice than a hot-shot pilot?Though, to be fair, I believe when they explained why Hal was a good choice for the ring, I had already phased out and began focusing on the half-assed effects.

Grade: C+

For all its flaws, the child in me was very entertained.