Film Review: Green Lantern (2011)

Release Date: June 14th, 2011 (New Zealand)
Directed by: Martin Campbell
Written by: Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim, Michael Goldenberg
Based on: characters by DC Comics
Music by: James Newton Howard
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, Angela Bassett, Tim Robbins, Temuera Morrison, Geoffrey Rush (voice), Michael Clarke Duncan (voice), Taika Waititi, Clancy Brown (voice)

DC Entertainment, De Line Pictures, Warner Bros., 114 Minutes, 123 Minutes (Extended Cut)

Review:

“You’re impertinent, Hal Jordan. You’re rash, volatile, opinionated – It seems Abin Sur found another just like himself.” – Sinestro

Man, I had high hopes for this film when it was coming out. Although, I thought Ryan Reynolds was a poor choice, despite liking him in general. He’s just not the Hal Jordan type and luckily he found his superhero calling once he started making Deadpool movies. I’m ignoring his first outing as Deadpool in that Wolverine movie though, as that was atrocious beyond atrociousness.

Anyway, this film was a supreme dud. It could’ve been great, especially coming off of the heels of how great the Geoff Johns run was in the Green Lantern comics just before this movie. Also, this had an incredible cast apart from the Reynolds misfire.

I think my hopes were also high due to how well the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies were in those first few years. But I guess the filmmakers behind this didn’t learn the lessons from the bad comic book adaptations, as they took the villain Parallax and essentially made him a giant fucking cloud like Galactus in the laughably awful Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

For positives, I liked what they were doing with Hector Hammond and I also liked the world building they did with the Green Lantern Corps. I also liked most of the people in the film but they should’ve used Sinestro more, especially with Mark Strong in the role. They also sort of wasted Tim Robbins and Angela Bassett without giving them more and better material to work with.

The special effects were pretty terrible. There are some good effects moments but the film looks overly cartoon-y and the Oa scenes felt more like a Pixar movie than anything I could try and attach to any sort of reality.

Also, giving the Green Lanterns fully CGI costumes was a bad idea.

I guess the biggest disappointment out of this was that it was directed by Martin Campbell, who did two of my favorite James Bond movies: GoldenEye and Casino Royale.

Rating: 4.25/10
Pairs well with: other crappy superhero movies of the ’00s and ’10s.

Comic Review: Infinite Crisis

Published: 2005-2006
Written by: Geoff Johns
Art by: Phil Jimenez

DC Comics, 241 Pages

Review:

I hated Crisis On Infinite Earths but I had hoped that this more modern version of it would’ve been more to my liking. I guess it is better but not by much because it falls victim to the same bullshit.

It’s overloaded with characters to the point that it’s difficult to follow and it just becomes a mega clusterfuck, trying to be larger than life while wedging a fuck ton of characters into double splash pages.

DC likes doing these big events that try to “reset” the multiverse and all they do is become overly complicated messes that ignore their own established rules because new writers don’t have time to read the old stuff or pay attention to it. In Geoff Johns’ defense, the event this is a spiritual sequel to was a convoluted shitstorm, so I don’t blame him for paying it no real mind.

If I’m going to try and look at the positives, there is really only one: the art by Phil Jimenez. It’s spectacular and it is lively and even if I don’t enjoy the story, it’s hard not to get caught up in the absolute beauty of Jimenez’s work. It’s stunning and even on those overcrowded splash pages, he fills the space magnificently and dynamically.

Apart from that, there’s not much to say. This isn’t as messy as its predecessor but it is still an over-sized shit meatball.

Rating: 5/10 – because of the art more than anything else.
Pairs well with: other massive DC Comics events that are overloaded with characters.

Comic Review: Crisis On Infinite Earths

Published: 1985-1986
Written by: Marv Wolfman
Art by: George Perez

DC Comics, 359 Pages

Review:

Crisis On Infinite Earths is one of DC Comics’ sacred cows. Yet, I’ve never had much urge to read it because my experience reading massive DC Comics crossovers has never been that great.

But now I have read it because I felt like it was long overdue and because this is a storyline that is referenced a lot, still to this day, thirty-five years later.

The first problem with this story might be apparent by the number of tags at the top of this post. It’s overloaded with so many characters that it is mostly a convoluted clusterfuck of biblical proportions.

In fact, this post may be the record holder for the number of tags I had to add to it. And frankly, that’s not all the characters, just the ones I know because two-thirds of the characters here are generic one-offs or so minute to the DC universe that they aren’t worth noting.

Now I know that some people love the splash pages from this series, as they showcase dozens (if not over a hundred) different characters all in one giant image. If I’m being honest, I’ve always disliked them and they are why I never really wanted to read this. Most of the action is minimal and many of these scenes are just characters standing around. They lack the energy that a splash page needs and look more like they belong in a Where’s Waldo? book. And I don’t say that to come off as a dick because I almost always love George Perez’s art. This just seems like DC management telling Perez to squeeze in as many characters as artistically possible. It’s hard on the eyes and it’s shit.

Another big problem with this twelve issue story arc is that every moment feels larger than life. Well, when everything is so big and grandiose, that becomes normal and status quo. You can’t possibly go bigger and with everything being so big from start to finish, none of it is memorable. It’s just a busy, stressful read without allowing the reader to catch their breath and reflect on what’s happened. It’s kind of like a Michael Bay movie. Throw so much intense shit at the audience, don’t let them stop and think and they’ll just move from point A to point B to point C and so on, forgetting everything that happened two points prior.

This event was made in an effort to sort of reset the DC universe. Honestly, all it does is make a giant fucking mess of things and splatters the mess all over everything it touches.

The plot doesn’t make sense, I’m not sure what exactly changed and with so many universes crashing together into one, it’s not properly organized and then re-established in any sort of way that a reader can follow. If this was supposed to be a jumping on point for readers in 1986, I don’t know how they made sense out of any of it and then knew which characters to follow.

The main reason for the previous sentence is that this is so overloaded with people that you don’t get to really know any of them. There is no character development and this is written in a way that it assumes the reader knows all about every character in the story. For a seasoned comic book reader like myself, who has been reading comics for three and a half decades, I was lost and didn’t know who half of the low tier characters were.

Crisis On Infinite Earths should have been written as a Justice League story with some inclusion of the Fawcett Comics characters and the Golden Age DC heroes. All the third tier and lower characters could have made cameos but even then, they don’t really need to.

I really hoped that this was going to pleasantly surprise me but it hurt my head.

It was too much, too big and too long.

Rating: 4/10
Pairs well with: mid-’80s DC Comics titles, as well as all the other massive DC crossover events.

Comic Review: Star Trek/Green Lantern II: Stranger Worlds

Published: October 25th, 2017
Written by: Mike Johnson
Art by: Angel Hernandez
Based on: Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry, characters from DC Comics

IDW Publishing, DC Comics, 139 Pages

Review:

While I wasn’t super fond of the first Star Trek and Green Lantern crossover, I bought both volumes so I had to give this one a read too. I’m glad I did though, as this one was better than the first.

The main difference is that this story really had its footing. The first arc served to establish this alternate reality where Lanterns and the Kelvin timeline of the Star Trek universe co-exist. In this volume, the story just bursts out the gates, running.

All the weird bullshit with the Black Lanterns and zombie Vulcans is over, which was refreshing. Instead, we get the Manhunters from Green Lantern lore and the return of the Benedict Cumberbatch version of Khan Noonien Singh. And Khan acquires Atrocitus’ red ring. Khan also has his entire crew by his side, which makes him an even more dangerous threat.

I’ve got to say though, I’ve really enjoyed Angel Hernandez’s art in both of these crossovers. He illustrates the characters’ likenesses really well. Plus, his style captures the tone of the Kelvin movies superbly.

There are some neat surprises in this chapter of the saga and it leaves things open for more. I’m not sure if there will be a third crossover for these two franchises but I’m not opposed to it.

At the end of the day, this didn’t blow me away but for a fan of both franchises, it was a fun experiment to read.

Rating: 6.75/10
Pairs well with: its previous installment, as well as Planet of the Apes/Green Lantern and Star Trek/Planet of the Apes.

Comic Review: Star Trek/Green Lantern: The Spectrum War

Published: April 20th, 2016
Written by: Mike Johnson
Art by: Angel Hernandez, Stephen Molnar
Based on: Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry, characters from DC Comics

IDW Publishing, DC Comics, 156 Pages

Review:

I hoped this would be a cool comic book series but I already found it a bit of an eye roller when I saw that they used the Kelvin timeline cast, as opposed to the likeness and style of the original cast and it’s version of Star Trek.

Anyway, I don’t hate the Kelvin movies, as you may know after reading my recent reviews on those films. However, why use Kelvin shit if you don’t have to?

So Ganthet dies and with his death, he rips a hole in spacetime. This conveniently brings several Lantern rings into the Star Trek Kelvin universe. The Enterprise crew finds Ganthet’s corpse and the rings and pretty quickly the rings come to life and choose their bearers. One of which is General Chang of the Klingon Empire, in what would be his first Kelvin timeline appearance. Some may remember him as the great villain from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

This story rehashes concepts from the Blackest Night storyline and just brings those concepts into the Kelvin timeline. We have multiple Lantern villains show up like Sinestro, Atrocitus and Larfleeze. We also get new evil ring bearers: a Romulan and a Gorn. But the biggest twist with the Blackest Night concept is when Black Lantern leader Nekron resurrects all the dead citizens of Vulcan, including Spock’s mother. While it was trying to make a big emotional impact on the reader, it felt cheap and pretty cheesy.

I had sincerely hoped that seeing two of my favorite franchises come together would be a fun story. This just felt like it was a lowest common denominator attempt at cashing in on yet another crossover.

Rating: 5.5/10
Pairs well with: its sequel, as well as Planet of the Apes/Green Lantern and Star Trek/Planet of the Apes.

Comic Review: Aquaman/Justice League: Drowned Earth

Published: Octoberber 17th, 2018 – November 28th, 2018
Written by: Scott Snyder, Dan Abnett, James Tynion IV
Art by: various

DC Comics, 224 Pages

Review:

This was a big crossover event that was used to give us a cool and epic Aquaman story just as his first movie was set to hit theaters. It’ts spread over multiple titles in a similar style to the recent Wonder Woman/Justice League Dark: The Witching Hour event.

The plot deals with some Atlantean deities coming to Earth and drowning the planet with magic water that turns everyone into fish zombies. No, seriously, that’s the premise.

That being said, it still plays out really cool and as bonkers as it sounds, the writers commit to the bit and the story is just as fun as it is nuts. It’s also pretty damn intense, as the surviving heroes try their damnedest to not get wet while working to save the planet.

However, there isn’t much here that seems to hold any real weight over the DC universe, apart from how it effects just Aquaman and where his comic will go, as it moves forward with a new creative team.

This will probably be remembered for its insanity but other than that, it isn’t an event that will be remembered as anything more than a cash grab and promotional tool for the upcoming Aquaman movie.

It had a solid creative staff and is certainly better than DC’s current mega event Heroes In Crisis but this massive extinction level event went down and now everyone, except Aquaman, is fine and has moved on. In fact, most of the other DC titles didn’t even seem effected by this other than a few casual mentions of people being turned into fish zombies.

I did like tracking down all these issues, nonetheless. I’ll always think of it fairly fondly, simply because it was a wild ride and mostly exciting.

Rating: 7.75/10
Pairs well with: other Aquaman stories leading up to this, as well as the recent crossover The Witching Hour. This also ties back to Dark Nights: Metal.

Comic Review: Planet of the Apes/Green Lantern

Published: November 8th, 2017
Written by: Justin Jordan, Robbie Thompson
Art by: Barnaby Bagenda, Emilio Lopez, Ethan Van Sciver (covers)
Based on: Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle; Green Lantern by John Broome, Gil Kane

BOOM! Studios, DC Comics, 157 Pages

Review:

I can’t believe that this came and went and I never saw it. I was at a different comic book shop than my normal one, though, and that’s where I discovered some of the single issues of this series. They didn’t have all of them for me to grab so I got the digital version of the collection because I didn’t want to wait to read it. I’m just a massive fan of both franchises and seeing that they have now crossed over got me really excited, as both universes just fit really well together. More Planet of the Apes crossovers, please!

The way that these universes collide was also really well orchestrated. If you remember the original Planet of the Apes movies, all five of them, once all is said and done, become a time loop. This is due to the ending of part 3 and the events of part 4. Because of this, the Apes version of Earth has been locked away from the rest of time/space. So, at some point, a Universal Ring was created as a sort of master ring over all of the Lantern rings from all of the different color/emotional spectrums. This ring was hidden away on the Apes Earth as it was locked off from the rest of the multiverse.

Anyway, Sinestro wants the ring for obvious reasons. Hal Jordan confronts him but soon finds himself waking up on Apes Earth at the head of the Statue of Liberty, reminiscent of the closing scene of the original movie. A group of other Lanterns tracks him down with help from the Guardians. Guy Gardner brings Grodd with for assistance (not a good plan) and the Red Lanterns follow the Green Lanterns, once they open a gateway to Ape Earth because Atrocitus also wants the Universal Ring.

The premise may sound a bit convoluted but it isn’t hard to follow in the book and I loved it. And hell, maybe it’s created a plot device with the Universal Ring that could pop up again down the road.

I also really liked the art in this book. BOOM! Studios is doing a really good job producing quality indie comics. Hell, this looks better than most modern Marvel series and is on par with the better DC titles.

Additionally, I love that Ethan Van Sciver came back to do a few of the covers for this series.

If you love Green Lantern, especially the Geoff Johns era and everything after, you will probably love this too. If you also love the Planet of the Apes, this will be a fun read for you. If you love both, prepare for a rollercoaster of awesomeness and possibly the need to change your underwear after this book reaches its climax.

Rating: 8.25/10
Pairs well with: Other similar crossovers: Planet of the Apes/Star Trek, Planet of the Apes/Kong, as well as Star Trek/Green Lantern I and II.