Green Lantern (Extended Cut) [Blu-ray]

fantastic. photography out of this world enjoyable entertainment for all the family .special effects get better and better. keep up the good work

I think that my bias towards Marvel, rather than DC has a lot to do with the fact that Marvel has always been a lot more present in my life. Sure, in the eighties and nineties DC dominated the big screen, but Marvel had the small screen pretty much locked down. I knew who the Marvel characters were, without ever having to pick up a comic, but did I know who The Flash, Aqua Man or Wonder Who was? Nope, didn't have a clue. Now, in the present day, though seemingly every Marvel character short of Howard The Duck and the Disco Dazzler is either a big-screen franchise or in fast-track development, DC Comics has lagged behind its long-time rival dramatically. Tent pole superheroes Batman and Superman remain some of the world's finest heroes, but hog all the movie action for DC. Long-time DC fans must have got used to slap-in-the-face disappointments like Cat woman. Green Lantern is the first of DC's stars that isn't named Bruce or Clark, to benefit from the major summer movie mounting which has made hits of Iron Man and Thor and established an ongoing Marvel film universe.

Though Warner/DC aren't apparently building up to a Justice League movie, this seems like a prologue for a bigger story to come. Thousands of CG Green Lanterns are seen in a crowd scene, but only two get to speak. I would have loved to see a larger exploration of the Green Lantern Corps as I have never read a Green Lantern comic and would have loved to have got to know some of the characters. But in this film, our hero, Hal has to battle on his own, since the rest of the Corps sit this one out and let the rookie defend our expendable galactic sector, shame, to have them fighting along side Hal would have made for some epic battle scenes.

Peter Sarsgaard's head-enlarged nerd, the traditional distorted mirror/rival of the hero, seems more a preliminary sparring partner than a title fight opponent. Mark Strong simmers on the sidelines as the Corps leader whose moustache suggest he might go evil before Green Lantern 2. And Hal's extended circle of family members, work colleagues, rivals and political connections just crowds Reynolds' big kid with a power ring into a corner of his own film. There really is no one in this film that I feel inclined to praise for there acting skills, not even Reynolds, and I really like him. Everyone is just packed into this film so tightly but the story is so loose that every single actor just seems to fall flat on his or her face. When the climax comes, it feels less apocalyptic than just rushed, as the hero goes from complete wash-out to standing up to a primal force of the universe in about five minutes.

Something has to be said about the visuals, which were pretty good, the post production must have been a killer, because of all the CGI. But it has paid off as it is quite impressive. However I can't help thinking that a lot of it was pandering towards showing off some lame 3D effect, something that I didn't have the benefit of, as I watched this on a Bluray on a 2D TV.

I think Ryan Reynolds is best off sticking to the Marvel universe, and seeing if he can get a Deadpool movie made .Green Lantern is visually dazzling but that is all it is, we've seen too many, much sharper Marvel versions, of the superhero origin story in the last few years. Maybe it is down to the fact that, up until now DC haven't really capitalised on there back catalogue of characters and with the exception of Batman and Superman, nothing that they put on the big screen will ever be took into popular culture like Marvel characters like Spiderman and Wolverine. Maybe they know this, maybe they thought the only way to make money with there B-list characters was to make a film that had very little coherent story but massively extravagant SFX? Well maybe they did make a few bucks, but they sure didn't make a good movie.

This is a very entertaining comic book movie that stands apart from your average marvel film, its good to see an original concept for a change from another character in the DC comic range! This movie has allot of visual effects that look top notch and is partly set on another world apart from earth which is pretty cool, the story is great and you dont need to know anything about the comics to get into it, it has a brilliant cast, Ryan Reynolds does well in the lead role and Mark Strong is very cool as Sinestro! This is a fun filled action packed comic movie thats well worth checking out its certainly one of the years best and most unique films!!