Green Lantern wasn’t at the top of my “want to see” list over the past 2 weeks, so why—in the brief scraps of free time I had in an otherwise hectic fortnight—did I watch it?  Because Midnight in Paris and The Tree of Life, two films I am anxious to view, were not readily accessible, and Green Lantern was.  For someone who had steadfastly avoided most comic book adaptations over the past several decades, I seem to have been sucked into watching a number of them lately, haven’t I?  Even more surprising, I’ve not hated any of them!

Yes, despite its third-choice status and a certain trepidation I felt because of a generally negative critical consensus, Green Lantern provided 100 minutes (more or less) of reasonably pleasant, escapist entertainment.  The effects, performances, characters, and dialogue are workmanlike and professional, enter these on the ledger in black ink; in the red-ink debit column put the script, which is slight and does little more than set up (so the studio hopes) the foundation for sequels.

On general principles, I am not thrilled about films deliberately made as part of a series, be they entry #1, entry #4 or the “final chapter.”  I’ve covered this ground before: unless each film can be enjoyed on its own—with little or no prior knowledge of the franchise, and with sufficient closure at the end rather than a cliffhanger or hackneyed “the monster is dead…or wait, no it’s not!  The menace still exists…” twist ending—I somehow feel the audience is cheated.  We paid to see a self-contained story, start to finish, and if we have to try to figure out who all the characters are and what past events they’re referring to, or if we watch 2 hours of good vs. evil only to be told “the battle is won but the war goes on,” that’s not a complete story.  It’s an episode.

Green Lantern begins with a narrated introduction to the Green Lantern universe and the Parallax menace.  You know what that’s called?  Lazy screenwriting, that’s what it’s called.  Don’t show the audience, don’t give them clues and make them figure it out, just spend a couple of minutes telling them what they need to know (I suppose that’s better than not explaining anything, then the only people who’d “get it” would be the comic book fans).  The film proper begins with the Green Lantern origin story: cocky test pilot Hal Jordan is “chosen” by the ring of dying alien-Green Lantern Abin Sur to become the latest member of the intergalactic police.  Hal thinks the ring and the form-fitting costume are cool, but wrestles with the responsibility and danger that come with the job (in this way, he’d be a lot like a newly-hired Hooters’ waitress, I’d imagine).  He clashes with his new boss, Siniestro (who, in addition to having a suspicious name, also resembles the Devil…do you think he might turn into a villain some day?), makes friends with a couple of other Green Lanterns, and is then faced with his first challenge (quite late in the movie), evil space cloud Parallax.

Green Lantern’s script is structured so that the three separate threads—Green Lantern universe lore, Parallax, Hal Jordan—are intercut for the first three-quarters of the picture, wrapping up neatly (almost too neatly) at the conclusion.  Parallax is portrayed as incredibly powerful and deadly (even to superheroes), so Hal’s relatively rapid, easy and single-handed defeat of the creature (oh, that’s not a spoiler, you didn’t think the hero would die and Earth would be destroyed, did you?) seems surprising, not to say unlikely.  Parallax has already killed a bunch of Green Lanterns, all presumably as powerful as Hal Jordan and certainly more experienced than he is.  How does our Green Lantern beat him, then?  Beginner’s luck, possibly.

The connection between Parallax and Hector Hammond is tenuous, which further dilutes the story.  Hector is a mild-mannered teacher and part-time scientist who gets infected by the yellow space virus and turns into a lumpy super-villain, causing minor mischief on Earth with no particular rhyme or reason.  The term “minor mischief” is used advisedly, since Hal rarely uses his Green Lantern powers until the final confrontation with Hector, then Parallax.  

Which brings us to the matter of his Green Lantern powers.  Hal’s ring can conjure up anything he thinks of, and perhaps it’s an accurate reflection of his pedestrian intelligence that he mostly creates large, green analogs of existing Earth objects and machines.  Even his best friend points this out after Hal prevents a helicopter from smashing into a crowd of people by cradling it in a transparent green racing car and having it run around a transparent green Hot Wheels track until its kinetic energy dissipates, or something: “that’s the best you could come up with?  A race track?”  Green energy bolts and walls aren’t good enough, Hal thinks into existence stuff like green cannons, swords, catapults, springs, giant fists, and jet planes.  

Still, Green Lantern is a comic book adaptation and one should not be too critical of things like this.  The effects are well-done for the most part, and if it seems in retrospect the movie was a little light on action, in fact it’s paced well and has few slow spots.  

While the plot is on the wispy and tenuous end of the spectrum, the screenwriters make up for it to a certain extent with some decent characterisation and a fair amount of snappy dialogue. Green Lantern finds a welcome middle ground between flippant campiness and strait-laced solemnity.  As Hal is rushing out of his apartment, late, he tells a young lady with whom he’s spent the night, “Make yourself at home.  There’s…water in the tap.”  Later, Hal, in his Green Lantern costume, confronts former girlfriend Carol Ferris, who immediately recognises him despite his (teeny tiny) mask.  ”I’ve known you my whole life, I’ve seen you naked, you don’t think I would recognise you because I can’t see your cheekbones?”  He says he wears the mask because it “came with the outfit.”  

The performances are all fine: Ryan Reynolds (who I remember from the TV series “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place”) is breezy and flippant most of the time, but appropriately stalwart when necessary (which isn’t too often), Blake Lively is attractive, Peter Sarsgaard twitchy, Mark Strong supercilious.  The production values are glossy, Martin Campbell’s direction is impersonally slick and unobtrusive.

In general, Green Lantern is entertaining enough, despite being essentially a 105-minute “episode 1.”  I can’t say I’m eagerly anticipating the next Green Lantern film, but I wouldn’t openly boycott it either.  Sometimes you just want to kick back and rest your brain.

[I still want to see The Tree of Life and Midnight in Paris though.]