Movie Review - Green Lantern

First let me say that I am old enough that when the original DC Showcase comic featuring what would come to be known as the Silver Age Green Lantern appeared on the news stand I was there to purchase it, so Green Lantern and I go way back. I only discovered the Golden Age Green Lantern much later, so I grew up on the Hal Jordan version. I always liked the comic and the characters and I really liked the Green Lantern Corps, overseen by the Guardians of the Universe. I think that before the age of Computer Generated Imagery or CGI Green Lantern was, like a lot of Marvel Comics characters, just too hard to bring to the screen. This first live-action telling of the Emerald Crusader's saga captures the tone of the comic and tells an entertaining story. The movie is about being selected when maybe you don't think you're worthy for a great task that most everyone (including yourself) don't think you can fulfil. In the end the hero succeeds in proving as much to himself as to anyone else that he is worthy. I'm not going to get into a lot of plot details here - there are other reviews that do that - but I find most of those reviewers are always blinded by the flashy special effects are rarely grasp the core of such films (remember what the reviewers said about Star Wars when it came out, and they've hated blockbusters ever since). I will say that the cast was really good at their characterizations (with Peter Sarsgaard as Dr. Hector Hammond and Mark Strong as Sinestro particularly noteworthy). This is, after all, a comic book adaptation, not a remake of Citizen Kane, and, as a long-time fan of the comic and the character, I liked this movie a lot more than I expected to. I may highlight some of my Green Lantern action figure conversions in future posts now that I'm pumped up about it.