Okay, so we start in space. A sort of rotten-apple-head guy encased in green Jell-O barfs fire on some space lizards and then they die. It turns out that this guy is a sort of flying octopus made of poo-dreads who is also on fire. Let’s call him Space-Voldemort. Now he is running around eating planets and shit. Not good!
Meanwhile, on earth: plane chase!!! It’s Ryan Reynolds (aka Marlon Bland-o) vs. Blake Lively (aka dean of students at Bland-eis University) vs. a couple of robot planes. Ryan Reynolds wins the plane chase because he doesn’t play by the rules and his only weakness is thinking about his dead dad. Remember that for laaaaaater!!!
So then, when a purple guy with no skin gets zapped by Space-Voldemort and falls to earth, of COURSE he chooses Ryan Reynolds to take over his job as space sheriff! Because Ryan Reynolds doesn’t play by the rules! He gives Ryan Reynolds his magic ring and tells him his new name is Green Lantern. Ryan Reynolds is pleased. Then he flies through space to the Green Lantern Convention where everyone is a dick to him. Now he is not so sure about this whole Green Lantern thing.
Over at “SCIENCE BUILDING,” Peter Sarsgaard is a nerd. Luckily, the government hires him to pick apart that purple no-skin guy and tell them about it! Dreeeeam jooooob!!! During the picking-apart part, some residual poo from poo-dread Space-Voldemort gets on Peter Sarsgaard’s finger, turning him evil. Oops! Now Peter Sarsgaard has to ride on a sinister Hover-Round of Terror and his head grows into a mask of Eric Stoltz from Mask. Weirdly, no one says anything.
Peter Sarsgaard decides to kill his dad by crashing a helicopter using his giant Eric Stoltz brain. Good thing Ryan Reynolds was also there to see Peter Sarsgaard’s dad ride that helicopter! Ryan Reynolds makes green stuff shoot out of his magic ring, which turns the helicopter into a car and then—instead of just turning it into a car with brakes, because that’s what someone who plays by the RULES would do—he makes the helicopter-car drive around really fast on a big looping race-car track, endangering many lives. Eventually, the helicopter-car crashes gently into a building and no one dies. Ryan Reynolds is a hero!
…A SUPERhero!!!
At this point, still nobody has screamed, “JESUS CHRIST, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR FUCKING HEAD!?” at Peter Sarsgaard, which lets all of us know that we are deep inside a fantasy world here, because his head is fucking gross. Peter Sarsgaard and Ryan Reynolds face off inside a plane building. Then poo-dreads shows up. Ryan Reynolds kills him by not playing by the rules and by not thinking about his dead dad anymore (remember!?!?). Blake Lively continues to exist. Please please please please please please do not make a sequel. 
Hahahaha.
Perfect summary. I unfortunately witnessed this abortion last night and had the same though: “What is Eric Stoltz doing in this film? I thought he died at the end of ‘Mask’.”
So much for Warner Bros’ plan to seamlessly replace their Harry Potter franchise with DC comic-book based movies aimed at the same viewing audience, of kids and retards who read stupid, derivative junk aimed at kids.
THERE’S ALWAYS TIME FOR ONE LAST KISS!
Doesn’t sound as good as I thought it might be.
hahahahaha lindy I have to stop reading these at work. I sit here silently laughing so I either look insane or like Im sobbing at my computer.
And thankyou for acknowledging how bland-boring Blake Lively is. God I hate her.
You are wrong about R-Reynolds though. His Canadian hotness gets him 1000+ points on the bland to interesting scale.
Wow, I didn’t think it was that bad, then again… It was midnight and I was running on 5 hours of sleep for the past 2 days. As a result was a bit delusional and enjoyed the bright colors and sounds.
But yeah, Blake Lively’s lack of face movement made me want to throw something at the screen.
Jeez, you make Green Lantern sound silly.
btw Lindy, congrats on doing Deadspin next week!
I wasn’t too excited about this when I first read about it. I will say, though, that the animated Green Lantern: First Flight that’s on DVD is pretty good. (Chris Meloni is the guy voicing Green Lantern.)
I am busy filming Green Lantern: Revenge of the Hamster as we speak, using a trained crew of mutant hamsters who promise not to barf on Ryan.
I really had a little bit of hope for this movie and after reading this I’ll just stay home and masterbate to a picture of Ryan Reynolds naked.
(and yes, it was hard getting them to do green screen)
Is it me or is RR a shitty actor? I just can’t see the attraction there.
ACTUALLY you wasted 10$ when you told everyone how awesome bridesmaids was.
Did you actually enjoy that movie? Fuck man. It was so bad.
Fuck you.
Sassy!
Yeah, that’s a perfect summary of the film. Man, it was so bad. Not even worth the free a/c bad.
@L-L: Thor is better than G-L. G-L is pretty puzzlingly bad. Not even much fan service to be had.
Superman, Batman, Spider-man… why do guys in tights always have to have dead dads? Stop it, you are not Disney!
I knew we were in trouble when the movie started out with a bunch of entirely non-ironic expository voiceover.
Hey Lindy, it was a good movie, and you are starting to overdose on your own snark. I know your job requires you to see a lot of crap, and that probably makes jaded cynicism a very real occupational hazzard, but this movie was a fun little piece of summer popcorn, not the crime against film the critics are making it out to be. Do yourself a favor, and don’t go to the movies for a few months. You might find the break does you some good.
Yeah, I have a hard time getting on board with this particular super hero franchise. When his greatest nemesis would probably be that chicken from Family Guy (being that he’s yellow), that says it shouldn’t be taken seriously, even for a comic book superhero movie.
Also, I hope everyone has seen the Onion’s video review of this as well.
@1 Aw, how-about-a Spoiler warning next time? Now I know how “Mask” ends. No point in seeing that film now either….
Well anyone that has to curse throughout their review because they are not more intelligent enough to come up with words, obviously missing from their vocabulary, needs to find a new occupation. Did you even watch the film?
Marvel won
I am absolutely puzzled by these sorts of reviews. What is it exactly about this film that makes it worthy of so much ire? This movie is an unremarkable, middle of the road, *totally enjoyable* super hero movie. There have been a lot of god-awful comic book movies the last few years: Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Spiderman 3, etc. I’m sorry, but Green Lantern is so much better than those movies. It’s not going to win any awards, nor should it, but come the fuck on. Get a grip.
Who would see this?