The Green Lantern

So this has become this year's go-to hate movie, and now I feel somewhat obligated to step up in its defense. I liked this movie. It wasn't great, but it certainly wasn't all that bad, either.

Going in, the most interesting looking parts of the movie were all of the scenes in space, while everything on Earth really didn't look good at all. But after seeing it, I actually thought everything was entertaining in their own right, even the Earth scenes, so I was pleasantly surprised about that. But entertaining as it all was, yes, the film has some issues. It's overly silly at times, there are scenes that are entirely pointless, the love interest is given a little too much importance, and there are some editing issues from time to time. Now, that said, this movie openly acknowledges almost all of these issues, and even pokes fun at itself for them. And that's really why I don't have a problem with this movie.

My personal biggest gripe with the movie was the constant back and forth cuts earlier on between our hero, Hal, and the villain, Hector. This was initially jarring to watch, but as the parallel between these two character became more and more apparent, not only did this no longer become an issue for me, I actually kinda liked that they did it. Hal and Hector are exact opposites of one another in every sense of the word, and they go down their separate paths at the same time, so cutting back and forth and seeing how each reacts to these different changes actually works out well.

Another minor issue was Hal's mask while as the Green Lantern, which honestly does little to actually hide his identity. There's a scene where he approaches his old girlfriend's window, and while watching this, I'm pretty sure everyone in the audience was thinking that there's no way she can't tell who he is. Sure enough, just as we're all thinking that, the woman recognizes him, and all is well again.

But this kind of thing keeps happening, such as the first time Hal uses his Green Lantern powers. It looks so cheesy and goofy, but the characters in the movie actually mock him for being so cheesy and goofy. It embraces its own shortcomings, making it a hard movie to hate... well, for me, at least!

I also mentioned there being scenes that serve no purpose, and while I don't have much of a defense for them, all I can suggest is to just not put too much thought into it. The movie knows what it is, and it never even attempts to take itself seriously or be anything more than that. It's really just an all around fun, occasionally dumb film at the end of the day, and because of this, I honestly can't see why everyone's chosen to hate on it so much.