A Study in Super Heroes: Part One -- Batman vs Superman (review)

Yeah, so, fine, I'm a bit late with this, but I've been busy and only just now got around to seeing it. That's kind of okay, though, because it moved to the cheap theater last week, and I got to go see it for $3.50, about all it's worth. However, it was actually worth that, unlike the last Superman movie or, say, the Green Lantern movie (I saw Green Lantern for free and still felt ripped off).

I'm not going to go through the movie the way I usually do with these things. Let's just say the story was... flimsy. Like a balsa wood airplane, the kind you get at the supermarket for... I was going to say for $0.99, but I bet those planes cost more than that, now. They're great for the first half a dozen or so throws, then things start falling off, then they start refusing to go back into their assigned places, right before they start splintering. Basically, you get one good afternoon of play with one before it goes into the trash. This movie is like that, good for one afternoon of play before the plot falls apart and you begin to wonder what actually happened.

Of course, what actually happened was a contrived scenario to get Batman and Superman to fight. Um... yeah... That's all I'm going to say about that.

Let's do this:

The Good:
Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne. In fact, you could say that was the awesome. Definitely the best part of the movie. Affleck should have always been Batman. Or, I should say, Bruce. He's great as Batman, too, but, face it, that's the easy part. The part every previous star of the Batman movies since Burton's Batman came out has failed at has been portraying a convincing Bruce Wayne. [Okay, well, Clooney was a good Wayne, but the Batman fail in that one was so epic (no fault of Clooney's (seriously? nipples on the suit?)) that it has discolored everything about it.]

The Bad:
The opening sequence giving Batman's origin. Again.
The dream sequence Batman has of the future where Superman has taken over the world. It was long and added nothing to the movie. I get that they were trying to... I don't know... incorporate more of Miller's Dark Knight, but that sequence was gratuitous and pointless.
Wayne as an alcoholic. No, it's not stated, but it's certainly implicit. And dumb.

The Good:
Surprisingly, Henry Cavill as Superman. I don't think much of Cavill just on a general basis. I thought he was adequate in Man of Steel and horrible in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., although, to be fair, it was a pretty awful movie, so it may not have been his fault. However, he pulled off a fairly convincing portrayal of a brooding Superman, unsure of himself and his place in the world.

The Bad:
Basically everything to do with Lois Lane.
Look, I like Amy Adams. I think she's a great actress. But Lois is supposed to be a strong, forceful personality, and Adams doesn't bring that to the table. She's just too tentative. Plus, in this, she's often Lois ex machina, showing up at opportune moments to deliver vital information. Or whatever.

The Good:
Jesse Eisenberg as the Joker. Oh, wait, he wasn't the Joker? Well, he gave a great performance as whoever it was he was supposed to be.

The Bad:
Lex Luthor. Or Alexander Luthor, Jr. The character played by Eisenberg. The character is completely inexplicable. He's a perfect example of how DC or Warner Brothers or whoever has written themselves into a hole they can't get out of because they continue to do everything from a pantsing standpoint. They killed Lex and they killed the Joker, so they just make up a new character with the same name as the villain they want to use and tack a Jr. onto it. Lame.

The Good:
Gal Godot as Wonder Woman. I don't really understand all the fanboy rage over Godot in this role. She looked good as Wonder Woman and pulled off the character more than adequately.

The Bad:
Wonder Woman. Why is she even in this film? It would have been just as plausible and, possibly, more believable, if she'd just shown up for the fight sequence. That's really the only believable moment for her being in the movie, anyway. They just need her in the movie because she's part of the Holy Trinity of super heroes and, if Warner Brothers wants to pull off a Justice League movie, they have to center it around all three of those heroes: Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.

The Bad:
Perry White. There are no words for how poorly they have translated White into this movie, and Fishburne does nothing to help the character out.
Jeremy Irons as Alfred.
Doomsday. Everything about Doomsday. There's nothing about the character or his origin in the movie that rises above stupid. Mostly, it's moronic.

So...
It's not a horrible movie. That's really the best thing that can be said about it. And I'd rather watch it again than to ever think about seeing, say, The Revenant again. Or Green Lantern. It's probably even worth it to see it on the big screen. But it's not a good movie. It's not even brain candy. At best, it's a piece of that hard candy your grandmother kept in a dish on the end table under the lamp, but it's all melted together, and you can't get any of it out without getting a knife or something and, then, once you have the broken piece you finally pry out of the reef-like structure, you can't tell what it's supposed to taste like, because you have parts of three or four different pieces of candy all stuck together. You try to suck on it but you end spitting it out into the metal trashcan next to the table where it sticks to the bottom and you try in vain to pretend that it wasn't you who spit it in there. [Not based on any actual event that ever happened to me.]

You Know You've Made It When... (part 2)

Sometimes it's good to ask questions. My last post on Lego minifigures inspired a friend of mine to go into research mode and look for figures that I may have missed, and he came up with some. It made me feel a little inadequate, actually, because I didn't even think to check for most of these guys.

First, though, the fails. The Lego fails, that is. Here are some ones that at least one of us checked only to find out that a very obvious character has never been made into a minifigure.
1. Sallah:

Despite being in half of the Indiana Jones movies, Sallah was never made as a minifigure. John Rhys-Davies does appear as this minifig, though:

Rhys-Davies did do the voice for this one, so I guess he can get partial credit for it:

2. Jane Foster:

Despite having more than a dozen Avengers related Lego sets, Jane does not appear as a minifigure.

Natalie Portman does appear as this figure, though:

3. Galadriel:

Explain to me how, exactly, Galadriel

does not get made into a minifigure while

Irina Spalko gets a figure in three different sets (while Sallah has none!). If I was Cate Blanchett, I'd feel robbed.

Also, a retraction. As I was working up this post, I realized that I was in error about Chris Evans.

The Fantastic Four have not, yet, been made into physical minifigures, although I could have sworn they had some sort of Lego set out several years ago with their flying car. When the FF re-boots, soon, it will no longer be Evans as the Torch, so it still won't count for him. He got robbed, too!

But there are a few new editions to the list of actors made into two different minifigure characters!

1. Ryan Renolds

2. Ben Kingsley

(Again, really? Nizam from Prince of Persia gets a figure but Galadriel doesn't?)

3. Alfred Molina

Another Prince of Persia figure on the list? Seriously? And he gets one from Raiders of the Lost Ark, too!

Which brings me back to my question of how the heck does Sallah not have a figure? Satipo, here, dies in the opening sequence of Raiders, but Sallah doesn't get one? I smell a conspiracy! Or a rat! Or Denmark!

But that's not all! Because there's also

Which gives Molina three different characters in three separate movies which may just make him the greatest actor of all time! Except, then, there's

4. Warwick Davis. Davis has been four different characters in two different movie franchises, though two of the movies from one of the franchises were 15 years apart. Who's greater, Davis or Molina? I guess you will have to decide. Here are Davis' figures:

5. Gary Oldman! And, really, how could I forget him the first time? I feel so bad. I love Gary Oldman! And he was by far the best thing about the Nolan Batman movies.

And he's also

Well, there you have it. The best actors who have ever lived. Or something like that. If I ever get a movie made out of any of my books, I'm going to make sure I'm some side character, some vital side character, so that if they ever get Lego sets, I will get to be a minifigure, too! Now that's the DREAM, folks!

Bateman, Reynolds, and The Change-Up

Movies are... well... funny, complex, interesting beasts. The greatest story in the world can be ruined by bad acting, bad directing, bad editing. Probably a number of other things, too, but you probably get the idea. Okay, well, a bad screen play if it's a work that's being adapted. On the other hand, a bad story, even a horrible story, can be elevated by great acting. Or an actor with great charisma. Or great directing. I could give examples, I suppose, but, really, why bother?

I suspect The Change-Up is a bad movie. Maybe even a really bad movie. But I can't tell, because I love Ryan Reynolds, and I love Jason Bateman. I don't think either of them are great actors (although, it's hard to be sure with Reynolds), but they both have a certain amount of charisma, and I tend to just like them. Having them together in The Change-Up throws up a really big smoke screen for me, and I'm having a lot of trouble seeing through it, or past it, to the actual movie. I loved their performances so much, that I really enjoyed the movie. Even if, as I said, it's really just a bad movie.

What I do know is that there were some "jokes" in it that were fairly offensive. Not in the "that's offensive but funny" way but in the "that's just offensive" way. Like when Mitch (while in Dave's body) sees Dave's wife breastfeeding and completely freaks out about it. Okay, so him freaking out is funny but not in a good way. There's been a lot in the news lately about the prejudice Americans have against women and breastfeeding, and this kind of thing just upholds those biases, and I find that offensive. Also, again with Mitch in Dave's body, witnesses Dave's wife going to the bathroom after eating something that... disagreed with her. He's disgusted by it and announces (remember, this is Mitch in Dave's body, and Dave's wife thinks it's Dave), "You are no longer attractive to me." While we may laugh at the character (and I'm pretty sure I did), it's not a nice sentiment and not really funny except  in that anyone could actually react that way. Except that people do react that way, that way that says women should not be allowed to fart in public or, even, in front of significant others, and this, rather than challenging that perception, says it's okay to think that way about it.

There are many, many other things of this nature in the movie, but I don't want to talk about all of that. Because, despite these issues, I really enjoyed this movie.

Maybe, I should say I really enjoyed the actors.

There are problems, though, even with that. Not with them in this movie, but in the fact that it's hard to feel like they were acting.

I don't, of course, know either of these men in "real life;" however, the perception is growing that both of these guys are just being hired to play themselves. At least, themselves as everyone else sees them.

Before Arrested Development, my best memory of Bateman is from Teen Wolf Too. Yeah, that was a long time ago. Since Arrested Development, pretty much all he's done is play Michael Bluth. Don't get me wrong, I love that character, and I loved the series, but I'm sure he's capable of more than that. But we don't get to see it. But he's the guy to get when you need someone to play that kind of role. Like in Horrible Bosses (which I loved). Or The Change-Up. It leads to the perception, though, that this is the actor. That he's just getting these roles because this is whom he is and why get anyone else to do it. So far, it's working for Bateman.

Ryan Reynolds, not so much. I'm sure Reynolds is capable of more than just being... himself. At least, the himself that he's established through such roles as Van Wilder and Hannibal King (in Blade: Trinity). And The Change-Up. Don't get me wrong, I love him in that persona (even if it's not really who he is (although interviews with him tend to lead me to think that that is a lot of who he is)), but he's been great when he's stepped outside of that box, too, like in Definitely, Maybe (which actually made me cry) and The Proposal. The problem lies in when he's hired to "be himself" in a role in which he should be someone else. Like in Green Lantern. Because in Green Lantern, we needed to see Hal Jordan, but all we got was Ryan Reynolds in green CG tights.

Whatever the case, Reynolds and Bateman being who they are known to be really worked in The Change-Up, and I overlooked a lot of what I would have said was bad if it had been two other actors. The made it fun, and you just can't help liking them. I do want to say, though, that this idea of the highly divergent socially classed friends is a myth that doesn't work and is getting old. There have been sooo many studies done about why these friendships don't work (and they don't work, which is why they are studied) that's it getting a little overly done to keep seeing them in movies like they do work. They are, I suppose, entertaining to watch, though, and Bateman and Reynolds doing that was certainly entertaining.

As for the rest of the movie, well, the rest of the cast:

Alan Arkin was back playing what seems to be the only role he's any good for anymore: the old, crusty father with issues with his children. He's good at it, but when did that start being the only thing he's good for?

Olivia Wilde was along as the pretty face. Again. Wasn't I just talking about her? I don't see that she can act. Her part was completely interchangeable. And, I suppose, my real issue is that I just don't understand what everyone else seems to see in her. She's not that pretty. Or hot. Or whatever. Maybe, that's just me. At any rate, she didn't bring anything to the role that a dozen other actresses couldn't have brought and brought better.

Leslie Mann, on the other hand, is someone I think is attractive. And she's funny. She would have been harder to replace. Not that the role required too much from her, but she knows her comedy beats and pulled them off quite well. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone better for that role.

Anyway... I loved the movie. It made me laugh. And I was pissed off to discover that, because we netflixed it, it was one of those "blocked" dvds where the special features are on the disc, but you can't access them because it's a rental. I enjoyed the movie enough that my gut reaction was "darn, now I want to go out and buy  this, because I really want to see this stuff." But I'm not going to. Even though I want to. I'm not playing that game with those people, and it pisses me off that they make me even think about it! Bah!

If you like Ryan Reynolds, you'll probably enjoy this movie. If you like Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman, you will enjoy this movie. If you like crude and inappropriate humor, you'll love this movie. If you don't... well, you should probably just stay away.

I want my two hours!

Today is the day of the

being run by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Should be an interesting topic. See, the thing is, everyone's favorite movies tend to all run in the same direction. Which is not to say that everyone has the same most favoritest movie, but, if you go looking around at people's favorites lists, the movies listed become rather repetitive. It's not all that often you'll come across something that really stands out. However!
People tend to have different lists for movies they hate, and that list can be much more  interesting than favorites. I mean, generally, when you hear that someone loves Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, you just smile and nod in agreement, "Yeah, that's a great movie." But, when you hear the list of movies people don't like, there is the opportunity for those, "What are you talking about?!" moments, "I love that movie!"

Contrary to popular belief, I quite like movies. Back when I was in high school and college, my friends believed, except for a few exceptions (like Star Wars), that I hated movies. Really, I just made them hate movies. We'd come out of seeing something, and I would point out the flaws and weaknesses, and they would go from "that movie was great" to "oh... that movie really wasn't very good." They interpreted that to mean that I had not liked the movie when that was usually not the case at all. Even though I could pick the movie apart, it didn't (necessarily) diminish my enjoyment. I just accepted that (most) movies would have issues and accepted them for what they were despite plot holes, bad acting, or predictable endings. Eventually, I learned to keep my mouth shut so that my friends could retain their own enjoyment.

None of that is to say that I don't have my own list of movies that you couldn't pay me to sit through again. Okay, well, you probably could pay me, but you'd really have to make it worth my while. I mean, really, really worth my while, and I consider my while to be worth quite a bit. Mostly, I'm going to focus on big, blockbuster movies that I think are completely overrated, although there will be a few where, if I could have, I would have demanded my two hours back. Keep the money, just give me back the time I wasted.

I'm not going to do a countdown here. Well, except for the top few. Mostly, I'm going to go sort of chronologically and deal with them at the time in my life when they happened, and why I think they don't deserve the attention they get.

10. Superman. There has not been a Superman movie made that is worth seeing. I grew up watching the old George Reeves Superman television series, which I thought was great (I haven't seen it since I was a kid, so I don't know how I would feel about it, today, but I loved it back then). The first movie was so much worse than the TV series. Not that Christopher Reeve wasn't good, but the movie itself was just boring. I've never understood why so many people hold it up as the epitome of the super hero movie. Yes, it was the first, but that doesn't make it the best. Besides the boring, it had one of the stupidest endings ever. You  have to understand that this is coming from the 8-year-old me, too. The idea that Superman could fly around the Earth really fast and make time go backwards is just... well, it's stupid. If an 8-year-old could recognize that, there's no excuse for all the adults that were all giddy over the film. And that was the high point of the Superman franchise. Don't get me started on Superman Returns. That's one of those where I want my 2 hours back. Brandon Routh did a great job with what he was given; unfortunately, what he was given was a steaming pile of crap, and there's just not a lot you can do with that.

9. Star Trek. Excluding the latest Abrams version, these movies should never have been made. Again, the first one was the best, and they just went down hill from there. Yes, I hear you all out there cursing me and protesting with mumblings about Wrath of Kahn, but, really, it just sucked. At least, the first one actually had an interesting plot. It might even have been okay if they hadn't been so busy patting themselves on  the back over their less than adequate special effects that they felt it necessary to devote over 30 minutes of screen time to absolutely nothing happening. "Ooh! Our model of the Enterprise looks really cool doesn't it?" "Yes, it does!" "Let's just pan around that sucker for, like, 15 minutes so the audience can really appreciate it!" "Oh, yes, absolutely!" And, then: "Ooh! Look at all the pretty technicolors we can make!" "That's awesome!" "Let's just have Spock fly into this stuff for the next 20 minutes so the audience can appreciate all the cool stuff we can do!" "Oh, yes, absolutely!" What a waste of time.
Now, to be fair, I'm a Star Wars kind of guy, and the action in Star Wars is "faster and more intense!" Action in the Star Trek movies is pretty yawn inducing. That's not tension; it's boredom.
In the end, though, the biggest issue with Star Trek as movies is that I never felt like I was watching a movie. They were just episodes of the TV show that were, for some reason, being shown at the theater. That's just not right. If they'd been on TV, they might have been okay.
The Abrams one, though, that was a movie, and doesn't belong in this list.

8. Batman. To be specific, the Batman franchise that was started by Tim Burton. I think I was the only person that came out of the theater in 1989 with the words "well, that sucked" on my lips. The thing is, if Burton had just been honest and called that first movie The Joker, I might have been okay with it. As it was, though, I hated it. And Keaton, whom everyone was worried couldn't do Batman was fine as Batman, but he sucked as Bruce Wayne. And the more of those movies they made, the worse they got. To the point of, "I want my two hours back!"
Years later, I found out why they were so bad. During a controversy with Kevin Smith, Burton proclaimed, "I would never read a comic book." Tell me how, exactly, you can attempt to make a movie about Batman without ever looking at the source material. That explains why he got everything wrong about those movies.

7. Catwoman. Is there even anything that needs to be said about this one? Well, maybe, source material. Use it. What a disaster of a movie.

6. Event Horizon. I honestly can't tell you why I hated this movie. It was so bad, I've wiped the memory of it from my mind. I just know that my wife and I barely sat through it. In retrospect, I'm not sure why we did. Stupid, stupid movie. One of those movies that forgets that people that really like sci-fi tend to be pretty smart people so failed to bring any amount of intelligence to the table.

5. The Matrix 2 & 3. These movies prove that sequels shouldn't be added after the fact. Although, now, the Wachowski brothers claim that The Matrix was always intended to be a series, that's just a way to justify making sequels for a movie that was never intended to have a sequel. They said as much before they started work on Matrix 2. But the money got into them, and they added a Terminator ending onto what had been a smart, thought-provoking movie. I want my 4 hours back!

4. Green Lantern. I already did a post about this one (you can see it here), so I'm not going to re-review it. Just give me back my 2 hours, okay? With the amount of money this one lost (like $100 million), I can't believe they're making a sequel.

3. Independence Day. The only stupid movie I'm glad I saw in the theater. It was worth seeing it that one time in the theater, because it really did have some cool scenes that would have been lost seeing on just a TV. However, that doesn't justify the utter stupidity that was the plot of this movie. Peter David (one of the greatest writers of comic books ever) did a great review of it back in the day which totally supported all the things that I had been telling my friends that sucked about it. It was one of those movies where the makers tried to distract the audience from the stupidity with cool, flashy things on the screen. Unfortunately, it worked. The only saving grace was Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum; they were great together. It wasn't enough to disguise the big platter of poo poo that was Independence Day, though. At least, not for me.

2. Highlander II: The Quickening. I loved the first Highlander movie. Yes, I realize it's pretty cheesy looking, today, but it was such a great concept. I watched everything that Lambert did for years after Highlander. And there was Sean Connery, too, who was already in my top 3 actors back then in 1986 (he's not anymore, although he probably still makes the top 10). How could they go wrong with a sequel? They forgot they're own source material, that's how. "Hey, I have an idea! Let's take this great fantasy movie we have and turn it into some weird sci-fi movie! That'll work, right?" Wrong. I got to see Highlander 2 for free at a special screening and walked out feeling like I'd been ripped off. That's pretty darn impressive, if you ask me.

1. The Dungeonmaster. Easily, the worst movie I've ever seen. Which I've mentioned before. I don't think 14-year-olds are supposed to walk out of movies feeling like they just wasted 2 hours of their lives. I mean, 14-year-olds are supposed to be wowed by anything that approaches special effects and be easy to please, right? Evidently, that was not the case with me. I walked out of that movie with the thought that it was the worst movie I'd ever seen, and that opinion hasn't changed in more than 25 years. Considering that Highlander 2 and Green Lantern are on this list, The Dungeonmaster is impressively bad. I want my 2 hours back!

There you have it. The worst movies I've ever seen. Well, many of them, anyway. There are a few more that could have made the list, like that monstrosity of a Godzilla movie that was made by the Independence Day people. And the animated Transformers movie. Probably even Cowboys vs Aliens, but I actually haven't seen that one, yet, and I'm not sure I'm brave enough to do it after what I've heard.
Okay, you can all scream at me, now.

DC vs Marvel and How It Relates to Writing (pt. 1): Green Lantern

What's the first really bad movie you ever saw? Did it scar you? I was pretty young, 14, when I saw my very first horrible, rotten, stupid movie. Stupidest movie ever. Seriously. I'll tell you the name, but there's a good chance you won't be able to even look it up anywhere. It was so bad, it has 3 or 4 other names besides the name I saw it as: The Dungeonmaster. To my knowledge, it has never been made available on DVD. That's the closest I ever came to getting up and walking out of a theater. At 14. If that tells you anything.

Um, wait a second, the closest I ever came to walking out of a theater was Highlander II: The Quickening. All it took was that first few minutes where they start in with background narration or scroll or whatever it was and reveal that they were really aliens from the planet Zeist rather than the immortals that they were in the first movie. To this day, I'm not sure why I didn't get up and leave other than the fact that I was with my cousin. We got to see that movie for free, and I still felt ripped off. However, it's not quite as bad as The Dungeonmaster. Close, though, but it doesn't quite fall that far.

Green Lantern gave me flashbacks of Highlander II. From the very beginning. The opening sent me right back to that same place as watching the opening to Highlander II. Maybe it's because I already know the history of Green Lantern and  the Green Lantern Corps, or, maybe, it's because it was just bad. Based on the performance of the movie, I'm going to guess it was because it was bad.

I was hoping for good things from Green Lantern. He's one of DC's more significant heroes. Part of the Justice League. Has a cool gadget. And I love Ryan Reynolds. Admittedly, that's because he looks a lot like a good friend of mine. The two could almost be twins. I did think Bradley Cooper would have been better for the role, but, in retrospect, it's probably better for Cooper that he got passed over. Despite the good I was hoping for the movie, from the release of the first trailer, I was scared of what they were doing with it. As it turns out, I was right.

I hate to talk about rules, but the writers broke seemingly every rule there is for telling a good story. Let's see, do they have a prologue? Check. To make it worse, it's a non-essential prologue since they repeat every piece of information later in the movie as Hal Jordan discovers the story. So they have a prologue and they have needless repetition. I bet the script was full adverbs, too. Maybe it was one of those too many cooks in the kitchen scenarios, since there are, like, half a dozen people credited for the script.

They introduce at least half a dozen characters that serve no purpose within the actual plot. Yes, these are characters from the comic book, but they don't do anything. In fact, the whole point of introducing the rest of the Green Lantern Corp and the little blue guys that founded the organization is so that they can do nothing.

>sigh<

I could go on about all the things wrong with the movie, but it would be rather pointless, I suppose. Yes, I know what I would have done differently, but I'm sure there are plenty of people out there saying what should have been different, so that would be rather pointless, too.

What we have, when we boil it down, is a company, Warner Brothers, trying to make a blockbuster. Oh, and just by the way, Warner Brothers owns DC. They're not trying to tell a good story, they're only interested in tapping into the blockbuster formula, and, with the exception of Batman, they are failing miserably. And, I have to say, Batman has been an exception because they have Christopher Nolan doing those, and he is interested in telling a good story. For crying out loud, Warner Brothers, basically, fired Joss Whedon from the Wonder Woman project because his story didn't fit their blockbuster model. Seriously, what are these guys thinking? I can tell you... they're thinking about money not about telling stories.

This behavior is just like the big publishers work. They give you a list of things they want from novels that fit the formula of the blockbuster. They don't care whether there is an actual story there. They don't care that Harry Potter doesn't actually fit the criteria of what a blockbuster should be, they just want to duplicate the experience. But not the experience of Harry Potter, the experience of the money pouring in from Harry Potter. In our efforts to be published, we writers often spend our time scrambling after these rules and lists and trying to make everything we do fit into them. And we get are things like Green Lantern. Yes, it got made, but, really, would you want to be remembered for that?

Is there anything good to say about Green Lantern? Not much, but I'll give it a go.

Blake Lively was adequate. The role didn't require much, but she did deliver it. She came across to me as too pretty, really, to be believable. Hmm... maybe not too pretty but too dainty. She played the part well enough, though.

Tim Robbins was almost good, even great. His part was just too small to not like him to the degree that we are supposed to not like him. He puts as much into it in the time we have with him, but it's just not enough.

Peter Sarsgaard had glimmers of being really great. Unfortunately, as his condition worsens in the movie, so does his ability to play that part. He starts out as being sympathetic, but he's supposed to turn evil. We're supposed to not like him in the end. Instead, he just becomes pathetic. I think it wasn't his fault. I think he did what he could with a bad script.

I'd like to say Ryan Reynolds, but I can't. There is never any connection with Hal Jordan, because the script is just all over the place. We never care what happens to him. During the big fight climax at the end of the movie, there was no tension because, honestly, I didn't care if he died. I'm sure the writers thought that it being Ryan Reynolds would be enough, but, for me, it wasn't. Sure, he's his typical charming, roguish self, but it serves to distance us from the character, not tie us to him.

The Oath:
In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power... Green Lantern's light!

However, saying the oath during the moment of crisis should not make you able to defeat the bad guy. Yes, it was dramatic, but it was also totally ridiculous.

So, yeah... I couldn't really think of anything that's completely positive about the movie. I can't believe Warner Brothers is going forward with the sequel.

We got to see the movie for free. It's a good thing, too; if I'd paid money for it, I would have felt ripped off. Like with Highlander II some 20 odd years ago, that was 2 hours of my life I'd rather have back. Even my 10-year-old didn't like it. he told my daughter that she should be glad she didn't go with us. At 10, he already has 2 movies that he's seen that are so bad, he would have walked out if he could have. The other one was Shyamalan's The Last Airbender. It's easy to like things when you're 10. Looking back, I can't believe some of the things I liked at 10. It seems wrong to me that stuff this bad is coming out. Stuff that not even a 10-year-old can get behind.