A big part of what makes good superhero stories so much fun is the power of myth behind them, the richness of the tale that paints the portrait that informs who they are and what makes them interesting as a hero.  Richard Donner defined how to approach in this in cinema with Superman: The Movie, starting us off on the mysterious planet Krypton before taking us to Clark Kent’s small-town upbringing that instills his apple-pie American values.  We then follow him as he learns of his heritage, and heads off to the big city on his journey to become the hero he is supposed to be.  Filmmakers like Sam Raimi and Christopher Nolan took notes, taking special care to define not only their characters, but to build a rich world to surround them.  The foundation for the superhero story is critical, and this is the primary failing of Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern.

The Green Lantern has the wrong idea from the moment it opens with a lazy info-dump voiceover from Geoffrey Rush, as though the man’s august tone is expected to lend automatic weight to lazy writing.  We’re given a brief intro to the Green Lantern Corps, a group of intergalactic police that get incredible powers from their rings that thrive on willpower.  We quickly learn that an evil force called the Parallax (voiced by a Clancy “The Kurgan” Brown, a good waste of talent) was contained in what I can only assume was an epic struggle by a Green Lantern named Abin Sur (Temura “Jango Fett” Morrison).  Of course, the Parallax quickly escapes the prison built for him, and hunts down and mortally wounds Abin Sur.  At death’s door, he flees to planet Earth, where his ring has chosen his successor, a test pilot named Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds).

Jordan is whisked away by the ring to the Green Lantern planet-hub known as Oa, where he becomes privy to their culture.  He finds that the other Lanterns, particularly their leader, Sinestro (the great Mark Strong), are disappointed in Abin Sur’s human successor, as they see him as weak and filled with fear, an emotion no Green Lantern should experience.  When Jordan discovers that the Parallax is headed to devour Earth before it continues to Oa, he must face the evil force alone.

When one looks at the good superhero origin movies, films like Superman: The Movie, Spider-Man, Batman Begins, etc., you find that they paint a rich mythology, and define their characters within it.  Bad superhero origin movies neglect or fail to do this, they often feel like the pilot episode of a television series we’ll never get, a good example being Tim Story’s dull Fantastic Four film.  Green Lantern fails right off the bat with its Basil Exposition narration and cardboard character development.  We’re constantly told that Hal Jordan is filled with fear because of a flight accident that took the life of his father.  We start off with the right idea as Hal partakes in a test flight against two drone fighter planes and subsequently chokes up, but lazy flashbacks and open declarations by other characters spoon-feed what could otherwise be interesting character moments.

Other characters don’t fare so well either.  Blake Lively plays the obligatory love interest, but her sole purpose is to be the damsel in distress by the end, in order to provide Hal with a sticky situation to get out of.  Their relationship is about as interesting as the dialogue spoken, they always declare how they are feeling at each exact moment, making for what feels like a relationship that exists because the script demands it to be so, rather than two actual human beings relating to each other.

Even character failings can be masked by the make-up of a good summer blockbuster spectacle, and Green Lantern does have its moments.  The image of alien astronauts exploring a barren landscape in space is striking, as is the scene where Hal Jordan flies and strikes a heroic pose in front of the sun during his final showdown with the Parallax.  But these are just a few fleeting moments in a film that mostly lacks images of substance.  Even Bryan Singer’s disappointing Superman Returns had a massive scope to it, a visual majesty that few summer movies achieve.  The Green Lantern rarely ever escapes from feeling bound by green-screen sets, it has the feeling of a blockbuster that is trapped indoors, even as Green Lantern flies through space and across the landscape of Oa, it feels small, and his Green Lantern powers feel like computer creations, rather than the product of the character’s imagination, which we are told they are supposed to be.

One wonders why Warner Bros. opted to spend so much money on a character with less mainstream of appeal like Green Lantern.  The closest guess would be the way Marvel managed to take a B-level character with Iron Man and shoot him to the top of the A-list.  But one has to factor the marvellous re-birth of Robert Downey Jr.’s career into Iron Man’s massive success, which played into its appeal outside of fanboy culture.  What we have with Ryan Reynolds is an actor who has made a career out of playing the same wisecracker in every film.  This may sound like I’m reviewing a movie on its budget, I assure you this is not the case.  Whether it cost $300 million or $10,000, Green Lantern is still a bad movie.  As I stated in a previous piece, it’s odd to me that so much would be invested in this character, especially when now I know all they ended up producing was a paint-by-numbers superhero movie.

Warner Bros. has already stated that they’re going forward with a sequel despite the movie’s disappointing box office performance (it’ll make money eventually, they always do), and I hope they succeed the next time around.  I was sure that Martin Campbell, who has made two of my favorite James Bond movies, would bring his eye for kinetic action and startling character moments to this film, but instead he’s made a dull CGI-stuffed blockbuster.  I know Green Lantern fans are fanatical about this property, and they deserve better than what they got.  Maybe next time.