After its absolutely atrocious trailer debut late last year, I had very little faith in Green Lantern. It had been well over thirty years since the debut Superman: The Movie on the big screen, and years and years of Marvel hero debuts, sequels, reboots and on-going franchises -- surely the goofiness and complete ineptitude of this trailer was not the most obvious of suggestions as to why Warner had never gone back to the DC well outside of Batman, Superman and their kooky band of misunderstood villains. The second trailer was a significant improvement, but did very little to alleviate my initial thoughts of how terrible the film looked.

Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is a cocky fighter pilot who tends to test the limits of just about everyone. He is “chosen” by the ring of fallen alien Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison) to become the next in a line of universe-wide heroes called the Green Lantern Corps. Hal is obviously reluctant to join, but as evil starts to descend on Earth, he must quickly decide whether or not he will become the hero he was chosen to be.

Earlier this summer, I sat through and was almost completely underwhelmed by Thor. It had infinite potential (including an amazing choice for a lead), but it felt like all we got were a couple of awesome scenes on Thor’s home planet of Asgard, a nearly unwatchable 3D post conversion, more of a push toward The Avengers and a whole lot of Earthbound melodrama. Green Lantern fares a little better in the 3D department, but practically mimics every single one of Thor’s problems. It saddens me to say, but some of those problems are even worse here. Everything you have heard and read about this film is exactly on the mark.

Green Lantern is an origin story, but one that feels disgustingly incomplete. The film spends its majority paralleling Hal’s ascent to becoming a Green Lantern, and scientist Hector Hammond’s (Peter Sarsgaard) descent into villainy. While this was an interesting way for the film to truck along, I felt cheated because it never really takes the time to tell us who either of these characters really is. There is no rich storytelling here, just actions and reactions. They even throw in a few backstories with hints and elements that never come to fruition (including a rather important one about a deadly accident involving Hal’s father). Most do not even have a reason to exist in the first place. It seems like they left it all out so they had something left over to put in the eventual sequel. It makes for a lot of boring exposition, and very little excitement outside of the action sequences. I realize these characters have existed for years, but every comic book origin film does what it can to make the audience understand who the characters are before it runs headfirst into their often incomprehensible plots. Why did anyone think Hal Jordan could get off without any explanations?

While the badly cobbled together storyline is an issue that looms over the film like the plague, it seems like the acting is just as much at fault as well. He may have charisma and a well sculpted body, but Reynolds is totally wrong as Hal. He brings his usual wise-ass routine that has worked well for the better part of a decade, but it only works for the first half of the film. The moment he gets the ring, it almost instantaneously stops working. When the plot starts to get moving and things begin to get more dramatic, Reynolds looks totally confused and unaware that he is on the same set as before. He ends up spending the entirety of the second half looking like he wandered onto the set of another film. He looks physically unable to rectify and align the comedy with the drama, and ends up going through the motions and phoning in the performance. He has never been a strong enough actor to carry something that is not a quirky teen comedy [Um… have you not seen Buried? – Ed.], and his work here only further proves it. I almost felt bad for him, because he looks so grossly out of place. Same goes for Gossip Girl's Blake Lively, who plays love interest Carol Ferris. After seeing her nearly unrecognizable turn in The Town, I expected a performance that was a little more than just a damsel in distress. Sadly, outside of a bit of yelling, that was all I got -- and a pretty awful one at that. Whether she was being held back or not seems irrelevant (comic fans know exactly what happens to Carol Farris as the series goes on); she is just as out of place as Reynolds is. The less said about their “chemistry”, the better.

While Mark Strong (Kick-Ass, Robin Hood), as villain Sinestro, is just as reliable as he always will be (even with less screen time than I imagined), the other standout is Sarsgaard. He seems just as badly miscast as Reynolds and Lively, but attempts to salvage what he can as much as possible. Yes, he spends one scene just looking at the camera with a sad, shifty look in his eyes, and spends countless others just uttering bizarre screams. When he is not doing either of those, he spends his time chewing scenery left and right. He is clearly the best actor among those with a lot of time on screen, and he makes it clear that he deserves to be in something better. He truly needs a huge, breakout, star-making film, and sadly this badly-written character is not going to be the one that gives it to him.

The only thing that saves Green Lantern from total oblivion is the awesome effects it employs from beginning to end. A lot of effort went into making them great and just as fantastical as the comics have dictated for so many years. Shots on Oa are amazing, and the creatures that inhabit it are just as good if not better. Even seeing Reynolds interacting with the likes of Tomar-Re or Kilowog (voiced impeccably by Geoffrey Rush and Michael Clarke Duncan) only proved greater as the scenes moved along. The creativity and detail in the many different items Hal possesses on the fly are all visually stunning. And somehow, despite my early concerns of how silly his suit looked, the designers did an excellent job of making it just as realistic as physically possible (and even made the mask look half decent). The additional nine million they added to the special effects budget seemed to help these scenes immensely. And I will likely end up hating myself for saying it, but when the film truly makes use of the added 3D, it looks downright spectacular. But do not let that endorsement get you too excited. Rather sadly, Warner only went halfway in delivering the 3D scenes, and left the rest with too thin a layer to notice -- or nothing at all.

I really hoped my initial trailer analysis for Green Lantern was horribly wrong, but am incredibly disappointed that I was right on the money. The movie is a letdown even with the lowest of expectations, and only has very few redeeming moments. With everything that goes wrong in the film, it just feels like it was destined for failure from the start, and with that in mind: what was the point of even bothering in the first place?

   -- David Baldwin