Green Lantern ::: 17 June, 2011

Looks pretty bonkers. I do like the wave of superhero flicks this year all going for a more colorful bombastic approach. I might give this one a watch, but I think CAPTAIN AMERICA looks a bit more fun.

I'm not a fan of Ryan Reynolds in this part, but I do appreciate the turn in comic book flicks towards more cosmic and zany storytelling.

I will be watching this movie. Quite possibly more than once.

Why, you may ask?

I give you exhibit A:



Scarlett Johansson must be insane, right?

Quote :

Saturday, June 18,2011
Mean Green
Green Lantern is just the latest Hollywood comic book film that makes black guys look bad
By Armond White
Green Lantern

Directed by Martin Campbell

Runtime: 105 min.

Green Lantern is a watchable if unexceptional entertainment, spinning an overcomplicated moral about guardians of the universe; will, courage and fear; and putting Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan in a body suit made of light. All amusing enough until the filmmakers…bring on the black guy.

No matter how fanciful, quixotic or faithful to their original source, most of this year’s comics-based movie sink when their pop-art legends are confronted with the modern world. The fantasy-figure heroes and villains cannot transcend cultural archetypes which means these contemporary, multimillion dollar productions keep dragging audiences back to the oldest, most decrepit social stereotypes.

It has become a particular annoyance this year. Given the essentially frivolous nature of these comics-derived films, it’s worth pointing out how their fleeting but constant offense prevents the movies from being the progressive fantasies they pretend to be. They spoil their own lessons about good and evil through their non-conscientious use of cinematic imagery and character presentation.

Here are three recent disappointments:

Idris Elba in Thor. While translating the gods of Norse legend into the modern day Hollywood universe, the makers of Thor challenged familiar thinking by thinking multiculturally. Casting black British actor Idris Elba as Heimdall, Guardian Sentry of Asgard, confronted archeological complexities more than it disputed history. Why shouldn’t a deity be portrayed by an actor of color? Problem is: Elba’s Heimdall never significantly figured into Thor’s action. The character’s conception was, essentially, a butler. His purpose was to admit and greet—aligned with 1930s Hollywood stereotype rather than divine or cosmological possibility. (Read the review here.)

Edi Gathegi in X-Men: First Class. During the round-up of “Mutant and Proud” superheroes, Gathegi as Darwin becomes the first to graduate to oblivion. He is gruesomely dispatched when his sketchily revealed “gift” is used against him. Darwin never gets to display heroism; instead, he is horrifically calcified. It’s a tip-off that the movie probably won’t use any of its characters satisfyingly. Even though Gathegi (also brutally dispatched in Gone Baby Gone) was felled by convention, the only dramatic surprise was that it happened so early in the story. Gathegi’s Darwin was X-Men: First Class’ Second Class citizen. (Read the review here.)

Michael Clarke Duncan in Green Lantern. Duncan voices a character named Kilowog, a member of the Green Lantern Corps, brother from another planet. He’s drafted to train Hal Jordan physically although Duncan’s speech patterns seem to dictate the character’s physical appearance; he looks like a police suspect sketch (a dark-skinned, menacing hulk as if derived from the British racial epithet “golliwog”). Essentially emulating the famous Lou Gossett Jr. badass drill sergeant role, Duncan suggests that racist stereotyping exists even among alien cultures.

Would any of these actors ever get a chance to play a superhero comics protagonist? Will the comics audience ever be educated beyond typical racist conventions? Can fans ever recognize the ideological roots of their heroes and villains and respond intelligently to how these pop myths are constructed?

Only Michel Gondry’s Green Hornet escaped this problem and did so primarily through Gondry’s sophisticated approach to the nature of comic-book heroism. Gondry, Seth Rogen and Jay Chou explored the stereotypes by which white male characters (and their audiences) presume heroism via social convention that gets mistaken for nature right. It leads to Britt Reid and Kato’s rivalry (Caucasian to Asian) which brings these issues into play rather than ignoring them and perpetuating the traditional biases and outdated cultural codes.

Racial stereotyping may be organic to the creation of comics lore (a simplistic genre) but Gondry’s Green Hornet proved it’s not essential to one’s enjoyment. Ironically, Green Lantern’s entertainment value comes from defying certain genre conventions. Ryan Reynolds brings an agile presence and light humor to the part of brash test pilot Hal Jordan. As a child who witnessed his test pilot father’s death, Hal’s frightened, arrogant psyche responds to the possibility of Green Lantern Corps heroism as a test of his maturity. Reynolds plays the seriousness better than Robert Downey in Iron Man or Toby Maguire in Spider Man. He also displays wit without resorting to camp like George Clooney’s Batman.

Because Reynolds is an unconventional comics type, it helps ground the film’s delirious lessons in humanity. He makes Hal’s scenes with Blake Lively as aviatrix Carol Ferris sexy and credible (“I think we both know I’m pretty good at walking away”) and straight-facedly represents Hal’s struggle with fear, weakness and will. It’s proof of what original casting can do for a comics movie. Director Martin Campbell is a reliable craftsman (The Mark of Zorro, Casino Royale) who raises the level of this genre even if only in terms of technique. The F/X of Hal creating objects out of his ring’s green light are successfully, modestly fantastic. Such professionalism needn’t resort to dumb stereotyping.

Is it possible that the comics franchise is inherently retrograde? Does the commitment to childish characters and mindless action prevent creativity, believability, intelligence? Hal Jordan’s magical ring of virtue, given to him by the intergalactic Green Lantern Corps is a talisman devolved from Wagner and Tolkien. And co-screenwriter Greg Berlanti (The Broken Hearts Club) doesn’t sustain Hal’s interesting family subplot nor detail his romantic rivalry with hydrocephalic super villain Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard channeling Brad Dourif). The action stays superficial despite Campbell’s advance in the depiction of disaster as spectacle; disaster doesn’t just happen but is full of threat and, importantly, witnessed by many (surely a Spielberg influence).

Green Lantern should be better than it is but improvement would begin with sustained enlightened casting and characterization. What’s happened in comics movies this year has not improved on the casting in 1930s Hollywood serials. Actress Sanaa Lathan (star of Alien Vs. Predator) recently snapped “Nothing has changed!” when describing her role as an embittered 1930s black film actress in Lynn Nottage’s current play Meet Vera Stark. Lathan and Nottage’s collaboration is more meaningful and entertaining than all the comic-book franchises—or any other Hollywood movie—so far this year. Stereotyping has gotten so bad that smart viewers have come to expect the insult. They know beforehand that if it’s an action movie and there’s a black guy in it, his doom is certain—the ultimate spoiler.

http://www.nypress.com/article-22543-mean-green.html

I'd like to see brotha Armond review Live And Let Die.

I saw a TV spot for GREEN LANTERN that said it's "STAR WARS meets IRON MAN."

I think the target audience is quite obvious.

That photo of Ryan Reynolds is obviously CGI. He's missing a left nipple and what are those little muscles on the side torso?
Real men don't have such muscles, at least not that you can see.

==Bravo Armond! Another big dump on Hollywood political correctness, which just re-inforces stereotypes.
Got to love Hollywod. They try so hard to be inclusive.

===Anyway, move looks great even if Ryan Reynolds is physically deformed.

I've not heard any good reviews about this from customers, which is really unheard of. People like all the crap they churn out these days.

Of course, I will still be seeing it, for reasons I need to repeat...

What would Armond say to a black Bond?

colly wrote:

What would Armond say to a black Bond?

He'd probably say, that's absurd, as the character is well, not of that racial persuasion

Just as he'd probably shake his head at the notion of a white Mr. Tibbs.

He's not promoting crazy stuff like a black Bond, but says that Hollywood, in its lame attempts to be pc, ends up re-inforcing racial stereotypes, and that compounding the absurdity, is that they are too pc clueless to even see it.

But don't fear, Armond is here to point it out for them.

Lesson learned is; best not to try and be pc. It just has a way of making one look ridiculous.

Yeah, I'm skipping this. Shame that the character isn't getting his due. I was pretty excited at the prospect of a DC movie coming along that wasn't Superman and Batman (Watchmen is a one-off, and Jonah Hex is erased from my memory).

I was quite impressed with Green Lantern and it was nice to have the 2d option and save the cash. Unlike Thor, where the local multiplex offered only 3d, grrrr.
GL is quite spectacular in 2d. I can't imagine how crappy darker screen, clunky glasses would have improved it.
The move drags a bit in parts, but I found it lots of fun. Reynolds looks great. He is prime super-hero material and he's his usual cocky, yet irrespressible womanizng self, at least before he's initiated into the Green Lantern corps.
Nobody does smart-ass better than Reynolds.
I like that they dealt with the origins part fairly quickly. We get lots of the Lantern being the Lantern and some great comic book worthy Lantern action scenes.
Lantern also has the best looking super-hero girlfriend of them all.
No annoying Kirsten Dunst or Liv Tyler or Natalie Portman.
But rather Blake Lively, who smolders as Hal Jordan/Lantern's test-pilot girlfriend.
I also like that Tim Robbin's character gets incinerated. He's not one of my favourite actors.
Next time maybe cast Matt Damon and Sean Penn as villains and have the Lantern toss them into the sun for some real up close and personal global warming. :twisted:

Keep this franchise going please!