Detective Pikachu (a movie review post)

Yes, I went to see Detective Pikachu, and you can shut your faces. I went with my teenage kids, and we all wanted to go see it. And I'm glad I did (because I won't lie and say I wasn't worried about it) because it was a fun movie. Well, it was fun if you have the background to understand it.

That's a flaw, by the way. By far the biggest flaw of the movie: it's not accessible to people who don't already understand Pokemon. There's little to no history or explanation given for the world, what Pokemon are, and how they relate to anything. This is not a gateway movie. It knows its target audience, and it doesn't care about anyone else. Not beyond a little bit of lip service about pokeballs and catching Pokemon, which they could have just left out since it doesn't relate to this movie at all. It actually served to muddy the waters more than offer any useful information for the novice poke-goer.

However, if you have any familiarity with Pokemon in any of its iterations, it's a fun movie. Total popcorn fluff, but sometimes you need an excuse to eat popcorn for an hour. (Yes, the movie is longer than an hour! No, the popcorn didn't actually last an hour!)

Of course, the biggest draw of the movie is seeing the Pokemon onscreen. Kind of just to see which ones they included in the film, but there are also some great interactions. The interrogation of the Mr. Mime serves as an excellent example.

I feel like I should give a more in-depth critique, but that feels like going to the store and buying a loaf of white bread and complaining that it's not healthy enough or wheat enough. If you go and buy white bread, that must be what you want, then it's not really fair to compare it to bread with more and better flavor. This movie isn't very deep; the protagonist takes the death of his father sort of like losing a wallet but with less panic; the villain's evil scheme is more about the visuals for the movie than any actual sense that it makes.

There have been a lot of animated Pokemon movies over the years, not to mention the several different TV series, the vast majority of which I have not seen other than glimpses of my kids watching them. However, I did take my oldest kid to see the very first Pokemon movie in the theater when it came out some 20 years or so ago. At the time, I thought it was pretty dumb, not that he cared; he was, like, four or something. I'm sure I would think the same of it today.
BUT! This movie tied all the way back into that one, which I thought was pretty cool, I guess, because it was kind of like, "Hey! I understand what's going on there!"

Of course, the movie was all about Ryan Reynolds and Pikachu. They really nailed that. All of it. The animation, the voice acting, the interactions. The movie hinged on it, and it's part of what made the movie fun.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you've ever in your life had a love for Pokemon, you'll probably get a kick out of this movie, even if just for nostalgia's sake. If not, skip it, and don't feel bad about it.

Deadpool 2: No Subtitle or Anything (Seems Like a Wasted Opportunity To Me) (a movie review post)

I suppose the first question people will have about Deadpool 2 is, "Is it as good as the first one?" Which is a more than fair question considering how out-of-the-box the first Deadpool was. It's the kind of thing that can be difficult to followup. You know, just how sophomore releases from bands sometimes end their careers.

You'll be happy to know that 2, in this case, is just as good as the first. I'm not going to go as far as some reviews I've seen and say it's better, because I don't think it is, but it certainly doesn't fumble the ball.
To mix a bunch of metaphors.
Maybe I should say drop the mic? Except that means something completely different.
If this was Deadpool, this would be the point he'd stick his head in your screen and say something about where you could put the mic.
Or the ball.
Or something about balls.

Actually, I went to see it as a double feature, which you might say is a lot of Deadpool, but it didn't feel like it. And that's without an intermission between the two films! The second one flowed pretty seamlessly from the first and continued on with the same tone and humor, so I would say the two movies are pretty on par with each other.

And, you know, sure, I could pick it apart; like the plot in the second one feels a bit contrived, but it feels more contrived than it actually is. When you want to introduce a time-travelling character from the future, it's hard to do other than to just have him show up. Which is not to say they didn't provide the back story for that, because they did. It all works just fine, but it felt a bit contrived, at least to me. Not enough to actually bother me, just enough to notice.

The one thing that is decidedly better is the closing credits scene, and that's saying a lot considering the scene at the end of the credits from the first movie is one of the best ones ever done, almost as good as the one from Ferris Bueller. And this one is better. So much better. If the movie had sucked but still had this end-credits scene, it would be still be worth seeing. Yes, it's that good.

A few other good things of note in the movie:

Josh Brolin. You have to hand it to him; he's captured roles of two major Marvel characters. That's pretty impressive in my book. And, well, I like Josh, and he does a good job as Cable.

Zazie Beetz: She's awesome as Domino. I don't really remember much about Domino from the comics other than that she was supposed to be a big deal character. I have a stack of issues of her first appearance in fact and, for a while, she was a big deal character. I guess. But I have no strong memories of her beyond her introduction. Which just so happened to be the first appearance of Deadpool, too.

X-Force: OMG LOL!
Now I can't wait for this movie.

Brad Pitt: What? You didn't know he was in the movie?

Basically, if you liked (loved) the first Deadpool, there is no reason to expect that you won't feel the same way about this one. They even managed to make an opening credit sequence that nearly matches the opening credit sequence of the first one in yummy goodness, and that's saying something considering the opening sequence from the first Deadpool may be the best opening credit sequence ever made. Or, at least, since Star Wars dispensed with one altogether.

Logan (a movie review post)

Relatively speaking, I was an early adopter when it comes to Wolverine. I was already following him as a character when his original limited series came out in 1982, and I would be lying to say that he was not one of my main reasons for following the X-Men through the 80s. Well, Wolverine along with the writing of Chris Claremont, unarguably one of the best comic book writers ever. Ironically, Claremont didn't care for Wolverine as a character and almost dropped him completely from the X-Men lineup in the late 70s. It was John Byrne who saved the character out of a fondness for a fellow Canadian.

That said, it's been 15 years since the last time I read any Wolverine (or any comics at all, really, other than a few here or there that one or more of my kids might have had lying around), that being Origin,

a story I didn't much care for overall. It suffers from many of the same problems as Logan, those being trying to fill in details around a character to achieve a particular goal even when those details don't really fit with the character that has been created.

Mostly, though, what Logan proves is that Fox is no more capable of creating a cohesive continuity for their super hero films than Warner Brothers. It's sort of like having your tea bag break in your cup of tea. If you're careful and drink slowly, you can manage to mostly keep the tea leaves out of your mouth... until you get to that point where you have to throw the last quarter of it out because the leaves are too dense. Until that point, though, the tea is enjoyable as long as you keep it to small doses.

So, yes, Logan is a mostly enjoyable film. It accomplishes the one thing I'm sure all Wolverine fans have been waiting to see: Wolverine really cutting loose with his claws without the need of keeping the bloodshed to a PG-13 rating. And cut loose he does: arms, legs, and heads. That alone is probably worth the movie for the true fans.

The aspect of the movie I found most interesting was the question raised about mutants and their powers when they get old. Of course, the movie only works around the question without ever really addressing it, but we do get to see some of the effects in the aged Charles Xavier as he struggles to maintain control over his mental abilities.

Stephen Merchant as Caliban was a pleasant surprise. I like Merchant, and he was perfect in this role. Dafne Keen was also great. She has a brooding stare which is easily the match of Jackman's.

However, the movie is utterly predictable, wasting a perfect opportunity to do something above and beyond that was afforded it by  the success of Deadpool, probably the only super hero movie Fox has nailed since X-Men 2 in 2003. That said, considering that Jackman is not returning to the claws again after this movie (unless Ryan Reynolds does somehow convince Jackman to do that Deadpool/Wolverine team-up movie), Logan is a good send off. Good enough, at any rate.

But it could it have been better if only Marvel had done it, which is the thought I have after every one of the X-Men movies since the advent of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with Iron Man back in 2008. Sony wised up and went to Marvel to get Spider-Man on the right track; maybe there's hope that Fox will do the same.

Deadpool (a movie review post)

I remember when Deadpool made his first appearance way back in New Mutants #98. I have the issue. Multiple times. However, I was unimpressed. He wasn't the big deal in that issue, anyway, not at the time. That was a character named Domino. Yeah, I know; you've never heard of her. I bet Deadpool has completely forgotten her and wouldn't even recognize her if they passed on the street. She'd be all, "Wade! Wade! It's me, Domino!" And he'd stare blankly through his mask and say something like, "Get off me, Spade-face." Back then, though, he was barely a Spider-Man ripoff and was contained completely within all four walls.

I was mostly out of comics by the time Wade had busted down that wall, so I never really got into the character. I knew enough, though, to be really pissed about the Wolverine movie and what they did to Deadpool in it, whether I liked him or not. Also, they had so perfectly cast Ryan Reynolds in the role and, then, basically, told him to bend over. Kind of like how Wade took that one bullet in this movie.

But, as Deadpool does, he, and Reynolds, came out on top in the end. Actually, I'm not sure if Ryan Reynolds isn't actually Deadpool. Or, what is even more likely (because, really, did Reynolds really exist before 1991?), when Deadpool broke that fourth wall in the comics, he emerged as Ryan Reynolds and has been trying to get to do the movie version of himself ever since. All of which is to say (again) that Reynolds is the perfect choice for Deadpool.

The movie is brilliant as soon as the film begins to roll, having the most creative and hilarious opening credits I've ever seen in a movie (something I'm sure you'll see repeated in many of the reviews). And it's not just the credits, it's also the visual that goes along with them. Though it's mostly the credits. I want to see the movie again just so I can see the credits again. Well, and then the rest of the movie, too, but the opening credits are enough to warrant a repeat viewing.

The rest of the cast is nearly as inspired as Reynolds. Okay, well, that's not true, because such perfect casting is extremely rare (and mostly reserved for Marvel comic book characters at this point), and no one else is as vital or as perfect as Reynolds is in this movie. However, Morena Baccarin had great chemistry with Reynolds, and it's hard to imagine inserting someone else into the role of Vanessa. Likewise with T. J. Miller and Gina Carano (even if she doesn't talk much). Oh, and Stefan Kapicic (even though all he does is talk since he's the credited CGI guy).

Okay, sure, the movie is super violent (sometimes in a Looney Tunes kind of way), super vulgar, and full of enough f-bombs to use in the warhead of a nuke, so I understand that some people could be super offended by the movie. But it's also full of humor (not just crude) and a lot of heart, and it's the heart that carries the movie, not the R-rated material. And, yeah, sure, the movie does poke some fun at the super hero movie industrial complex (like the studio not being willing to pay for more than two X-Men to appear in the movie), but it's fairly clever and a lot of fun to watch. As long as you're not being offended. Or squeezing your eyes shut at the violence.

But should you see the movie? Well, that's hard to say. I want to just say, "Yes! What are you kidding me? See the movie!" But, then, there are those people who will be offended, and those people should just stay away. There are also people who don't like super hero movies, but I think some of those people would enjoy this movie for no other reason than how irreverent it is, so that can't really be a gauge. Basically, you should do your research. Watch the trailers. All the trailers. If you find yourself giggling, you should probably give the movie a try.

Oh, and do stay till the end. Don't worry that it's over. Don't go home.

The Big Short (a movie review post)

I think when you hear about a movie being made about the financial collapse of the housing market, you don't think "funny." That's certainly not what I thought. So I figured this was going to be a serious "doom and gloom" kind of movie, but I wanted to see it because it's about the guys (well, one guy, really) who saw the bubble and knew it was going to pop. You hear about the people who saw it coming, but you don't really hear about them, if you know what I mean. They get brushed off as doomsayers who just happened to be right this time but not because they were right but because they were lucky. After all, no one could have seen the coming of the collapse of the housing market, right?
Right?

Honestly, Steve Carell was enough to make me want to see it, but it's a subject I have interest in. And I like Gosling, too. I'm not a fan of Bale, but I do concede that he's a good, possibly great, actor, so I could get let his presence slide. And, um, I had actually forgotten that Brad Pitt was in it at all. I do like him, so that would have been a plus... if I had remembered.

Then the movie turned out to be a comedy! A dark comedy, granted, but a comedy nonetheless. I suppose I could have known that before going in, but I don't like to know too much about a movie before seeing it and the fact that this is a comedy in no way takes away from the movie or the subject matter. Humor may have been the best vehicle for a movie like this, in fact.

Christian Bale plays Michael Burry, the actual guy who saw the housing bubble and knew it was going to burst. I'm not going to get into all of that or what happened because you can watch the movie or do the research to find that stuff out, and you should because it's interesting and somewhat fascinating. That he saw the bubble was not "luck" or a good guess or anything like that; it was an ability to look at the data and know what it means, something most (nearly all) people are incapable of. So, yeah, of course it sounded ludicrous when he suggested that the housing market was going to collapse. Also, he was trying to make money off of it but not because he was trying to make money off of it. No, I'm not going to try to explain that. Also, Bale was incredible as Burry. Like I said, he's a good, possibly great, actor whether I like him or not.

Brad Pitt was also cast somewhat against character and, since I had forgotten that he was in the movie at all, it was halfway through or something before I even realized it was him. It was one of those "oh!" moments: Oh! That's Brad Pitt! And, well, if someone like Brad Pitt can make me not even recognize him, you have to know that it's a good performance.

Carell was playing more to character, kind of an angry Michael Scott kind of guy, but he was really good and fit the part perfectly. He's actually the guy you end up having the most connection with because he's in this investment business but really hates everything about it. He hates all of the corruption and deceit and greed but, yet, there he is. So, yeah, at first, when he and his group figure out about shorting the housing market (they'll explain that to you in the movie), it's about the money but, as he finds more out about what's going on, for him, it's really about hurting the banks. Carell is actually great in the role and makes you really feel for the character.

Speaking of the movie explaining things, that stuff is awesome. They actually stop the action of the movie to have celebrities explain concepts, like the bit with Margot Robbie in a bubble bath explaining whatever she was explaining (I don't remember what anyone explained, now, so that has nothing to do with Robbie in the bubble bath). Those bits were pretty brilliant; the one with the chef and, um, whomever was with him was probably the best one.

And, oh, yeah, Gosling is good, too, though he didn't really do anything that you wouldn't expect of Gosling, so hos performance doesn't really stand out to me. It's the kind of thing you'd expect of Ryan Reynolds, but Gosling does a lot of that kind of thing, too.

All in all a really great movie, as good as Spotlight, really, which fills me with conflict, because I want Spotlight for best picture, but The Big Short, though a different kind of film completely, is equally as good. I wouldn't want to have to pick between the two as to which one is actually the "better" movie.

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 guess that concludes negotiations," and the Lucky Hat

We finished The Lord of the Rings at Skywalker Ranch this past week. We did not, however, run into George Lucas again. My friend said it was because I didn't wear my lucky hat. I didn't know I had a lucky hat, but, evidently, I do. Because I was wearing it the week before when we did see George but not wearing it any other time, my friend has declared it "lucky" and decreed that I must wear it any time I'm on any of George's property with him. heh

I feel uneasy about The Return of the King. Part of the problem with that is that it's been longer since I read that one than the rest, so the movie just gives me a feeling of being "off" that I can't really pinpoint. I love Gondor. I love the oliphants, even though they are just, really, too much. They're still spectacular. Maybe it's that the little changes that started in Fellowship take things too far off target at the end for me to deal with. But the movie really ends on target so that can't be it. I don't know. My summation of Return is that it's a great addition. Fellowship still should have been the one to get the Best Picture Oscar, but I can live with Return getting it if the alternative was that none would get it.

When I was younger, much younger, I used to do this thing. It's that thing that, sort of, everyone does. Any time a book is being made into a movie, readers always rush out to read the book before they see the movie. I used to do that, too. Inevitably, it lead to the movie being ruined for me. Always (always) my response was "the book was better." Of course, the book was better. Being almost the only reader out of my friends, it gave me a sense of superiority, I think, that I could always say "the book was better" in the midst of all of them saying that they liked the movie. Bottom line was that it caused a disenjoyment of the movies for me.

That all changed with The Hunt for Red October. I had never had any interest in reading Tom Clancy before the movie was coming out. I didn't read his genre. I toyed with the idea of reading the book before the movie, but, in the end, I figured, why bother. I didn't want to go out of my way to read something I wasn't actually inclined to read. The only reason I wanted to see the movie, anyway, was because of Sean Connery, so why bother with  the book. Connery wasn't in  the book.

As it turned out, I loved the movie. I loved the movie enough that I wanted to read the book. And I did, and the book was better. But not by much. It was better just because there was more stuff in it. But I discovered something... see, my cousin read the book first, and he had nothing good to say about the movie, because he had just read the book, and I found that to be very interesting. Especially after Patriot Games. Because I just kept reading Clancy for a while after Red October, so, by the time they got around to making Patriot Games, I'd already read it. And I didn't like the movie because of it.

That experience changed the way I did the whole book to movie thing. If there was a movie coming out based on a book, I wouldn't read it first. Reading the book first can ruin a movie, but it's very rare that seeing a movie can ruin a book (the one exception I've found to this is Percy Jackson--the movie is just so much better). This has made me able to enjoy many movies that I may have been overly critical of if I had read the books first, including The Lord of the Rings.

But, yes, I did read The Lord of the Rings first, many times, in fact. Here's what happened. I was actually in the process of reading LotR to my oldest son when the whole movie thing came up (I think that was my 4th time through the trilogy). We were in the middle of The Two Towers. I quit reading it. He was young enough, at the time, to not really care that I quit, because I just picked up something different to read to him. As long as I was reading something to him... he wasn't really particular. I wanted to have time for the details to fade a little bit so that I wouldn't be holding the books up to the movies the whole time. This is why I always have this uneasy feeling about Return. It's been quite a long time since I read that one, at this point, and a lot of the details are hazy. I just have a feeling that things aren't right. But I can still enjoy the movie, of which I am glad.

A good friend of mine, the one that looks so much like Ryan Reynolds, took the other route. As soon as they announced the movies, he determined to read the books first. He finished Fellowship just weeks before its release. He had a difficult time with the movie, especially with Arwen's role in it. It reminded me, again, of the dangers of inoculating myself with the book before seeing a movie. It is, however, time, again, to read The Lord of the Rings. If I can ever manage to finish these other two books that I'm reading! oy!

In other news, I finally saw Deathly Hallows Pt 2, and I'm glad it's been so long since I read the book. I'm sure I would have been more upset at the amount of stuff left out if I'd read it more recently. Now that the movies are finished, it's probably time for another re-reading of Harry Potter, too. I do feel, though, that they did a better job with this movie than they've done with most of them. It was quite enjoyable. Except for the histrionic girl sitting in the row in front of us that just would NOT SHUT UP. Seriously. She was one of those people that doesn't understand the internal part of "internal monologue." I have never been in a theater with a more obnoxious person, and that's, sort of, saying something.

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.