So, it looks like the Green Lantern movie is going to be just godawful

Schniekes.

As of this moment, Green Lantern is tracking at 20% at Rottentomatoes.

Hey, that's still better than Catwoman, but marginally worse than Sucker Punch

What a colossal @#$% up.

I have tickets to see the movie on Friday, and I'm still going.  But at this point I'm looking forward to it slightly less than the trip in for my annual physical.

I have tried to be positive and not go all internet-geek-guy-crazy during the entire production, but since they announced the screenwriters and director, internally and honestly, I've been a little sad.  I've known this was never going to be MY Green Lantern movie, and it was going to water down the concept and go through the whole Poochie-fication that's going to occur when the producers start thinking about mitigating risk (ie: let's cast Ryan Reynolds) and thinking with studio-think (Hey, that Blake Lively is certainly popular!  Right?  Right...?  Yes, that totally sounds like it must be right.).

Wanting and hoping for something to be okay, and trying to not condemn a movie off a single trailer (because I quite liked the most recent trailers), casting decision, early costume shot, etc...  is not what the internet does.  We've made a sport out of looking at a shot of the costume and completely FREAKING OUT because it doesn't look like the comics, which, people, is largely impossible.*

Well, I wanted a good Green Lantern movie, but it sure doesn't look like we got one.  This is bad for any number of reasons.  Its a bad start for what was supposed to be DC's new place at WB as THE tentpole part of the company.  Its bad because it means its going to be that much harder to jump start any other franchises after WW also fizzled this year.  Its bad because DC is in the middle of this dicey relaunch.  And its bad because, as the review Randy sent me indicates, when the movie is bad, it really hurts the character for a long time in any number of ways.  Hell, rumors say the failure of the Supergirl movie indirectly led to the death of Kara in Crisis on Infinite Earths, and we're STILL dealing with that decision 25 years later. 

Comics and fantasy are a weird thing.  Its never about the idea, its always about the execution.  The idea for Batman is, at its core, kind of weird and goofy, but enough people get how this is supposed to work, that they manage to pull it off in all kinds of media.  But if the producers and director come to a project like this with a limited imagination...  you are going to kill it in the cradle.

The core concept of GL is not any dumber than "guy gets bit by a spider, becomes SPIDER-MAN".  Its not any dumber than what we'll see in Captain America this summer.  The reductive over-simplification of origins for ANY character in ANY movie is a zero-sum game.  And I haven't seen the movie, but it basically sounds like WB streamlined GL's admittedly mushy 50 years worth of storytelling down into a streamlined, off-the-assemblyline actioner.

Look, I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have to admit to more than a little disappointment that the studio apparently botched this so badly.  So, I guess when you hit a 20% rating, I'd say - take that money, go buy Geoff Johns' "Green Lantern: Secret Origin" and enjoy.  Its at least a little closer to what some of us love about GL.

Sigh.  You know, one nice thing about DC failing to actually make movies is that we could always imagine how great it would be if they DID make a GL movie.  And I really am not looking forward to the "you like Green Lantern, admit you're stupid" conversations I'm going to have to sit through for the next year.


*people freaked out about how bad the costume supposedly looked for Dark Knight.  That's not to say they're all great, but aside from Iron Man, few look good just standing there.