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Posts: 13497
Jun 20 11 7:05 AM
kosh62 wrote:Two were hits but one was a disappointment. Yep, based on that, people are sick of super-hero movies and Hollywood isn't going to make anymore.
Posts: 2533
Jun 20 11 9:36 AM
Golden Age
And GL's lackluster performance still will not deter WB from looking at other DC concepts. HAWKMAN is in very early stages of development right now.
Posts: 25865
Jun 20 11 9:40 AM
kosh62 wrote: I was comparing budgets. Those are the two most expensive films ever made, regardless of their quality. I was pointing out GL cost as much to make and market as they did. The artistic merits of the films were not part of the discussion. ____________________________________________________________Your discussion or mine?
My name is Oedi and I soar amidst the stars far from the planet of my birth. I guess this starship is the closest thing I've got to a home now, for I am a refugee and an outlaw. Vanth Dreadstar, Syzygy Darklock, Willow 327, Rainbow and Skeevo are my family. We are revolutionaries. Our goal? To bring an end to the 200 year old war between the Instrumentality and the Monarchy!
Posts: 1346
Jun 20 11 12:07 PM
psykomyko wrote:I also definitely enjoyed AVATAR more, even if it has its own story and pacing issues (but then, what James Cameron film doesn't
Posts: 2878
Jun 20 11 12:18 PM
Posts: 321
Jun 20 11 3:23 PM
kosh62 wrote: MRCOMICBOOK wrote: Sentry 459 wrote: Maybe I'll get my wish when a Doctor Strange or Adam Warlock movie hits the silver screen someday! I doubt those will ever be made now because of Green Lantern bombing at the box office.Think about it,if your a Hollywood studio would you spend millions to make an Ant-man movie or a a similar b comic book hero movie now?Antman or Doctor Strange would do worst numbers than Green Lantern. I am afraid the bloom is off the rose for super hero movies. It should be interesting how the big two Spider-man and Batman fair box office wise next year. I have a funny feeling neither will come close to their box office predecessors.Green Lantern performing this badly at the box office just about puts a kibosh on similar heroes getting big time movies made now. Gee, there have been three superhero movies released so far this summer...Two were hits but one was a disappointment. Yep, based on that, people are sick of super-hero movies and Hollywood isn't going to make anymore. SARCASM MODE OFF. There will be more super-hero movies. Some will succeed, some will fail. Just like any other cinematic genre. There will be films made from lesser know characters, yes even Ant-Man and maybe someday even Dr. Strange. Marvel Studios is on a roll and has yet to have an out-and-out box office failure. With their track record to date, I could see them getting a Doc Strange or Warlock film considered.And GL's lackluster performance still will not deter WB from looking at other DC concepts. HAWKMAN is in very early stages of development right now. The studios want movie franchises. They want concepts that support two or three lucrative sequels. Super-heroes are perfect for that.The super-hero genre is here to stay, just like the Romcom or underdog sports hero film.
MRCOMICBOOK wrote: Sentry 459 wrote: Maybe I'll get my wish when a Doctor Strange or Adam Warlock movie hits the silver screen someday! I doubt those will ever be made now because of Green Lantern bombing at the box office.Think about it,if your a Hollywood studio would you spend millions to make an Ant-man movie or a a similar b comic book hero movie now?Antman or Doctor Strange would do worst numbers than Green Lantern. I am afraid the bloom is off the rose for super hero movies. It should be interesting how the big two Spider-man and Batman fair box office wise next year. I have a funny feeling neither will come close to their box office predecessors.Green Lantern performing this badly at the box office just about puts a kibosh on similar heroes getting big time movies made now.
Sentry 459 wrote: Maybe I'll get my wish when a Doctor Strange or Adam Warlock movie hits the silver screen someday!
Maybe I'll get my wish when a Doctor Strange or Adam Warlock movie hits the silver screen someday!
Jun 20 11 3:59 PM
drumore wrote: And GL's lackluster performance still will not deter WB from looking at other DC concepts. HAWKMAN is in very early stages of development right now.I give Hawkman about a 20% chance of happening.Over the last 5-6 years we've heard Deadman, Doom Patrol, Justice League, Wonder Woman, Flash, Teen Titans, Suicide Squad and other DC properties were "in development" and for one reason or another they didn't move forward.
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Jun 20 11 4:21 PM
Registered Member
Jun 20 11 4:25 PM
Posts: 327
Jun 20 11 5:19 PM
Jun 20 11 5:22 PM
Jun 20 11 6:07 PM
An Ear In The Fireplace wrote: I get the feeling some people watch the numbers and if the numbers indicate a hit, they say what a great movie it is, but if the numbers say it's underperforming, they moan about all the problems with the movie. I say it was a great movie--regardless of the box office (which was pretty good, all things considered). Before the movie came out--I would have said the 3D screenings should help the box office. Because the higher ticket prices would push up the gross. But in hindsight, maybe having all those 3D screenings was an impediment to people seeing it--because you have to be really sold on a movie to go for the higher price of the 3D screening. And all those 3D screenings meant there were less 2D screens available.
Posts: 7726
Jun 20 11 7:18 PM
Jun 20 11 8:26 PM
Jun 20 11 11:36 PM
Posts: 607
Jun 20 11 11:42 PM
Coming Soon: "Son of Yojimbo", starring the Super Beatles!
Green Lantern
Director: Martin CampbellStarring: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Saarsgaard, Tim Robbins, Angela BassettReleased by Warner Brothers Entertainment
I don’t think it’s expecting too much to want a movie to be good. Theater ticket prices are the same, regardless of which movie you see, so shouldn’t all films meet a minimum standard of quality? When you purchase an item at Wal-Mart, can’t you return it if the quality is substandard? Shouldn’t the movie studios at least try to provide the theater-going public with an enjoyable experience? I know tastes vary. I know not every movie will appeal to every viewer. But what recourse do movie fans have when, as in the instance of Green Lantern, there is very little evidence that those involved with its production gave a damn about the final product.gGreen Lantern, the latest vehicle for the developing cult of Ryan Reynolds, disappoints on so many levels that it is difficult to know where to begin a critique. Perhaps a logical place would be visually. This movie has very little to show for what was reportedly one of the largest budgets in Hollywood history. $200 million, give or take a few. My eyes were so under-whelmed by what was on the screen that I have to ask - where did the money go?
My only reference point for a price tag of that size is Avatar, and, despite flaws in the story, James Cameron successfully transported his audience to another planet for close to three hours with that movie. Green Lantern clocks in at a measly hour and forty-five minutes, with most of that time spent on good ol’ planet Earth. Time away from our planet is split between the vacuum of space and the planet Oa, headquarters of the universal policing agency known as the Green Lantern Corps. Now, most filmmakers can convincingly reproduce vacuum – nothing – before they graduate from digicam. One wouldn’t expect that aspect to require large sums to portray. As for Oa, I’ve seen more convincing planets on Pigs In Space, from the old Muppet Show.
Oa looks like any generic terra firma from any generic video game. Except dark. Very, very dark. So dark that the audience shouldn’t expect to see much detail. Ooh, bet CGI got a bonus for coming up with that budget saving trick! Apparently Oa is only comprised of rocks, and buildings, although I could be wrong about this and its really just building-like rocks, or rock-like buildings. I don’t know. It was very confusing. Oh! And I think there were these green platforms that joined together the larger things, that may have been buildings, or rocks.
There are an awful lot of Green Lanterns on Oa. Funny. If I remember right, there’s only supposed to be 3600 of them. I could swear there were at least that many in some single camera shots on that planet, though, so when do these guys go on patrol? Is being a Green Lantern like belonging to the Country Club? You just stand around the clubhouse all day with your chest puffed out? And most of these Green Lanterns need to work on their wardrobe, or perhaps the Guardians should hire a new designer.
Speaking of the Guardians of the Universe, who are sort of the desk sergeants for the Corps, I should mention that they were one of the more successful CGI effects in the movie. The way their brains seemed to be on the outside of their skulls was pretty keen. Like most of the CGI creations in the movie they didn’t seem to have much life in them, but that seemed to work in the movie’s favor when portraying emotionless beings.
The other members of the Green Lantern Corps, other than Ryan Reynolds (and sometimes even him – I’m not going to refer to the character as Hal Jordan - it was only Ryan Reynolds, selling himself, on the screen), just don’t pass the visual muster. I don’t care if they have power rings - the Navee could kick these guys’ asses. The Navee are so much more real, and that’s a huge asset in any fight. I’ll admit it was kind of neat to see some programmer/designers’ attempts to translate familiar comic book Lanterns to video, but I never believed they were real characters, or extras, or whatever you want to call them. They looked like action figures. And in many cases the result was pretty ugly. Did the movie’s designers not believe that comic book artists are capable of rendering ugly beings? If they were supposed to be ugly, I’m sure someone would have drawn them so at some point during the past fifty years.
Perhaps the best illustration of this particular failure of the movie is Kilowog. Granted, Kilowog would not be the nicest looking character in any comic book universe. But his portrayal in this movie marks the second time, after South Park, that I’ve seen a bowel movement brought to life on the screen. Sorry, but that is the most polite way I know of to describe the visual Green Lantern’s creators have given us here. I physically cringed every time he appeared.
And how about that Parallax? Or, as I like to call him, the Great and Terrible Oz, with a thirty pack a day habit. This movie’s Big Bad just looked silly with his big, orthodontically-challenged head flying about, bellowing and carrying on. This redesign was obviously calculated to appeal to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers fan base. Why couldn’t these filmmakers have ripped-off Aliens, or Predator, for their evil alien, like most other respectable movies. It would have been far preferable to this.
I could probably go on commenting on the look of this movie for far longer than I have time for, so let me finish by commenting upon Ryan Reynold’s ring constructs. Surely this is the primary reason for a Green Lantern movie to even exist. The opportunity to realistically portray the wide variety of objects the main character imagines into being and the way he uses many of them as weapons is one that Warner Brothers would have been foolish to pass up. But even more foolish is having this movie be the result of their attempt.
At one point Reynolds transforms a helicopter into a car, and has it race along a track like a child’s toy. This was clever, although this attempt at a rescue causes a lot of chaos, making the scene difficult to follow. It was also a nice touch to have him use the giant boxing glove near the end. All of the other constructs were pretty blasé, and their duration on screen far too brief. What space-ships are to Star Wars, this element should have been to this movie. What we get feels more like an after-thought.
I focused on visuals in this review because that should have been the dominant focus of the filmmakers. This is a summer, popcorn, super-hero movie, after all. But every movie deserves a good story - a tight, focused narrative is a requirement. Again, Green Lantern falls short. Just a few examples, in no particular order:
- 210 seconds of contextually irrelevant time spent with Reynolds’ extended family. Oh, wait. It’s supposed to tell the children who are the intended audience of this movie that, even though he is a w-h-or-e, he’s really a nice guy and don’t you wish he was your dad?
- Sinestro doesn’t like Ryan Reynolds. Thus he is evil.
- The mask. This wretched thing is only supposed to automatically appear to protect Reynold’s anonymity. Yet it remains on his face while flying through space.
- The wonderful Angela Bassett is wasted as a talking suit-ified Amanda Waller.
- Tim Robbins’ one-dimensional performance.
- Who were those three aliens that got blasted by Parallax? Were these the other three Green Lanterns he killed, mentioned by Sinestro? They didn’t look like Green Lanterns. If not, why weren’t we shown the scene with the other three Green Lanterns?
- Corporate executives who aren’t smart enough to stay at home when they send their goons out to break legs.
- Tom Kamalku. Who is this person? (I know who he is, but the average movie-goer doesn’t)
- Why is Carol the only person who figures out that Reynolds is Green Lantern?
- World Destruction relegated to an “Oh – and this happens!” bit after an over-extended origin.
As I originally stated, so very disappointing. I love the DC and Marvel heroes equally. We’ve gotten a few good Marvel movies over the past several years, and, after The Dark Knight, I was looking forward to an enjoyable series of films featuring DC characters. Warner Brothers stumbling out of the gate jeopardizes the chances of that happening during my lifetime.
I should mention that I saw this film in Real D 3D. This was my first experience with any 3D process other than IMAX. I was not impressed. And I think the fault was with this particular movie, not Real D. The 3D Transformers 3 preview took my breath away – and I hate Transformers! Was this movie not shot in 3D? They couldn’t afford that in their $200 million budget?
Jun 21 11 12:13 AM
An Ear In The Fireplace wrote:I don't recall Coast City ever being mentioned in the movie. If I go again, I'll try to look out for that. I thought this was one area where they could have done more. I felt like the audience wanted more of that classic comic book stuff.
Jun 21 11 1:43 AM
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Jun 21 11 8:58 AM
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