joestank15

This film is a solid B to B+. It's a very mature film about letting go of your past mistakes and focusing on the people that matter in life. Also a very enjoyable robot cat and some cool science fiction. The space travel in particular was eye popping and clearly a love letter to 2001. Chris Evans brings a lot of heart and vocal gravitas and I feel like he's a worthy successor to Tim Allen's work. As to the number of 1s people have steam rolled this film's rating with on imdb, some folks can't handle seeing gay, or black, people, at all, in their films. But it was an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours on Disney+.

Green Lantern - Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) receives a ring from a mysterious dying alien and finds that through it his thought can be turned into reality. He uses the ring to fight a fear-based enemy Parralax, which is not a pharmaceutical drug but an intergalactic glob of space doom.

You know, for a story of such intergalactic peril, it's hard for me to remember anything of significance. The movie is literally slipping from my mind, but I'll do my best to diagnose the film.

The Good: The Green Lantern planet of Oa, and the power ring effects are pretty. The performances aren't bad. Ryan Reynolds is a good actor, even though he wouldn't have been my choice for Hall Jordan. Peter Saarsgard is also good as Hector Hammond, and the film would have benefited from more of him. Whenever Mark Strong appears, I feel like caring. There's a training sequence that is easily the most entertaining thing in this film. Mark Strong just has a gravitas and an intensity that the movie needed more of. That's not to say that the rest of the film is full of laughs. It's not. Humor would have also added a lot to the film.

The Bad: About that lack of humor. I'm going to blame most of the faults in this film on the writers. Nearly all of them have only written for television. They've all produced more than written, and two of them have written for No Ordinary Family and the bad half of Heroes. Oy. To quote the Mythbusters in a pseudo-plumber voice: "Well there's your problem." There are a bunch of superfluous scenes and some fairly random cuts to unrelated stories scattered through the film. Nearly everyone mentions Hal's dad's jet fighter fatality to him at least once, just to make sure we remember. Then there's the problem that the audience is supposed to believe two test pilots, a senator, and biology scientist all know each other stretching back to childhood or are related. And two of them receive superpowers. It's not like this is going to ruin the film. It's just another thing that subtly tells you someone wasn't trying. And that's the gist I get from this film.

The film basically has no real antagonist. There's a floating cloud of blackish-yellow Parralax doom, but it never really poses a threat. It's kind of laughable that Hal Jordan travels to Oa and back to Earth twice before Parralax could conceivably reach either. Thank goodness when it gets to Earth it attacks the half of that planet that's in broad daylight, or you'd never find it. Hector Hammond should be a better nemesis, as he has telekinesis and telepathy and an actual personality, but the film spends too much time trying to make him sympathetic rather than a true villain. He has no real scheme or goals, he's just a victim of Parralax. I know the reason the filmmakers went with these two sad sacks is they want to save Sinestro for a sequel, but judging from the box-office returns (only $50 million on the opening weekend? for shame.) they should have hedged their bets and spent that rainy day money early.

Because there's no real villain, the problem Hal faces is...self doubt. How exciting. He has substantial fears, which is exactly the sort of thing I would think should probably disqualify someone from being a test pilot. Anywho, I think Hal's real problem is a lack of imagination. A minigun, chainsaw, and a couple of jet fighters are the most interesting things Hal does with the ring.

The Ugly: The film has a drastic overuse of CGI. Green Lantern should at LEAST have a real honest to goodness costume. Superman's from another planet too, but his costume is made of honest to goodness cloth. It's hard to really be interested in a hero when 85% of his body is digital. And when his power is to create green CGI from the power of will, there should be more creative uses than what we see. What should be Hal's iconic entrance into the public eye has him instead - I kid you not - rollar skating a helicopter through a series of Matchbox Car-style loops to safety. Like a Cartoon. I think Daredevil slicing a man in half with a subway train was a better superhero introduction. Even the characters later admit how stupid and un-iconic an introduction Green Lantern's display of power was, which means the writers probably also knew.

Bottom line, the movie is ho hum. There's just no wow factor. Aliens and power rings and telepathy seem to faze almost nobody in this film. And if they're not interested, I'm not interested. There are few moments of power, depth, or interest or anything. Therefore, I give the film a D+

Tron: Legacy - A sequel 28 years later to the original, Tron follows Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) the creator of Tron. Sam is called to his father's old arcade mysteriously and gets zapped into a program where he interacts with other bots including his father's doppelganger Clu (Jeff Bridges), a murderous zelot program.

This is a sequel that few waited for or wanted, probably. I suppose someone wanted to do a remake, but someone else had too much nostalgia to deny Jeff Bridges (guy's on a roll lately) another movie. It works much better as a sensory experience than a film. The atmosphere is enjoyable. Whilst everything in the Matrix was a flat black and green, here we get black, blue and orange! Although otherworlds are supposed to be vastly more complex and intricate than ours, look at how many colors they have and the simplistic nature will come crashing down to you. There's freaking nothing to do in the world of Tron. There are the discus gladiator matches and the races (both cool), but that seems to be all that's interesting in this world. Bottom line, the story sucks and the world doesn't feel like a universe worth exploring. It makes no sense for the most part (why are there storms in a computer world?). The Iso's aren't explained properly an neither is why a 20 year stalemate is in place between Clu and Kevin when they live a 5 minutes drive from each other and Kevin seems to care little for home defenses of any kind.

There's nostalgia aplomb. Bruce Boxleitner (guy from the first movie) appears at the beginning and end of the film. Sam puts a quarter in an old arcade game and I thought of the Zoltar machine from "Big". Journey's "Separate Ways" is used to great effect. That song, awful music video and all, is a good metaphor for this movie. Its feel is nice and it's a great song, but it's also a bunch of campy guys running around an empty warehouse with nothing to do.

The performances are a mix. Jeff Bridges is always welcome in a film, but here he is channeling "The Dude" from The Big Lebowski. He's all zenned out and I almost expected to here him say "this aggression will not stand" or "hey man, that's just like, your opinion man". Garrett Hedlund is pretty much a blank slate. There's nothing exceptional about his performance. I'd have forgotten his name if I didn't look him up. Olivia Wilde is better as Quora. She adds some much needed spunk and glee to the movie. A pity Garrett has so little chemistry with her. Cillian Murphy has a blink and you'll miss it cameo. He has to be one of the most talented working actors of his generation to be in so many bit parts in blockbuster films. Michael Sheen seems to be channeling campy devious performances from any 70s to 80s sci-fi film. Movies like "Logan's Run" or "Mad Max" come to mind as Michael chews scenery and does kicklines in albino makeup. And Jeff Bridges as Clu is a mix. He's good when he is malevolent and ambivalent in the first scene but keeps getting worse and worse and bellows at everyone far too much. And why do stadiums of loyal computer programs need so many over the top motivational speeches? Maybe that's how programming works in the world of Tron.

The effects and music are really the show. And a pretty good show at that. It would be better as a thrill ride than a 2 hour film. The music is fitting and atmospheric, so hats off to Daft Punk, though I'd like to hear what MGMT might have done. The film's story and universe don't really work, but the trimmings, costumes and effects are enough to warrant viewing. They, thankfully, will be what stays with you later.

Remember the CGI, forget the sci-fi, The Big LeTronski gets a C.