I hate it when I’m right.

If you were to ask my friends to breakdown who I am as a person, I think one of the most common traits you’d find is that I really hope for the best in things.  Not always an optimist, per se, but I really want things to work out for the best. I want the bad movie to end up good, I want the crappy looking dinner to have great food - I would like to believe that from so-so beginnings, great things can happen.

So, when last November, the Green Lantern trailer was attached to Harry Potter, and looked awkward at best/terrible at worst and overall left me underwhelmed, I wanted to believe that the movie just wasn’t ready to be shown off properly yet.

I mean, it’s Ryan Reynolds! Sure, he’s not the best choice for Hal Jordan, but he’s fun! And it’s the director of Casino Royale, and sure, spy movies have nothing to do with superheroes but…it’s something, right? And OK, I’m not into Gossip Girl, but they have to see something in that Blake Lively girl to cast her, right?

Oh, how I wish I had listened to my gut.

To bring you up to speed, or to give you what to expect, here’s the plot of Green Lantern - Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is a cocky fighter pilot. One fateful day, he is bequeathed a powerful ring by a dying alien, Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison).  Abin Sur was attacked by an evil force, personified as a giant yellow and grey cloud with a cranky old man face, called Parallax.  In Sur’s dying moments, he gives Jordan the ring, making Hal the latest in a core of thousands of Green Lanterns, the universe’s police force.

Sounds really cool and interesting, right? It is! Or rather, it could have been.

I could write out an entire piece tearing apart the film scene by scene, pointing out exactly what was done wrong, but ultimately the issue is very simple - the film is incredibly lazy.

Essentially trying to become the DC Film Universe equivalent of Iron Man, Green Lantern is a movie trying to establish far too many things at once. You need Hal, you need Carol, you need their relationship, you need the ring, you need Planet Oa, you need Sinestro (performed well by Mark Strong, although all he really does is stand around and monologue), you need Hector Hammond, you need Parallax, you need the willpower vs. fear explanation, and somehow also setup the sequel in….less than two hours.

Yes, everything I just mentioned plays out in an hour and forty five minutes.

How on Earth do they accomplish this? Surely the team (and I mean team, with 4 screenwriters and 3 story by credits) has cracked the code to making sure superhero movies don’t need to run 2 and a 1/2 hours!

WRONG!  Unless you consider removing any weight, momentum or point from the proceedings as “cracking the code”.

Remember how great it was to see Tony Stark become the hero in Iron Man? He goes from drunk playboy to a man haunted by his own weaponized demons over the course of the film, ending as a hero.  Hal doesn’t have that. He’s an asshole who cares about himself, until the plot decides he’s a hero and has someone tell him he is one now.

Nothing in this movie is earned or even struggled for. It just happens - and that is the films greatest failing.

A perfect personification of this is the Planet Oa sequence. Planet Oa is the headquarters of sorts for the Green Lantern Corps.  All of the 3600 Green Lanterns gather on this planet. It’s a location full of amazing creatures each with their own unique, incredibly complex design.

You know what they do? Stand around and listen to Sinestro talk. And two train Hal. Sorta. They more just talk to him while he doesn’t understand things until the movie needs him to become adept.

I realize I’m writing this movie into a corner, as if it’s the worst film I’ve ever seen - it’s not, it’s really not.  For this year alone, my worst film is Sucker Punch - but at least that movie put forth the effort to fail, and fail spectacularly.

Green Lantern cost over $200 Million to make. And I honestly couldn’t tell you where that money went.  Was it to the wasteful CG suits? Maybe. (It’s an incredibly useless effect that I still cannot see the point in)  But whatever it is, it certainly wasn’t spent on making a film anyone can give a damn about.

Avoid this. I’m sorry Warner Brothers, I wanted the DC movie universe to start here, too - but if you want me to care, at least start by giving me a movie worth my time.

Oh, and last - if you must see this, avoid the 3D. Much like the rest of the movie, it’s not worth the effort put forth.