Green Lantern (Martin Campbell, 2011)

Bucking the prevailing trend for Marvel/DC superhero adaptations, Green Lantern went resoundingly arse-over-tit not just with the critics as is commonplace but even at the box office. This is gratifying, as by any criterion it's a feeble effort. The comic book source is an inexplicably enduring one considering the lameness of the concept, i.e. that there's a corps of guardians of the universe who have magic rings that they can use to make all manner of gadgets materialise from their imaginations, provided they're all green. Oh, and they can fly at the speed of light and anything yellow is evil.
This might have produced a bearable film adaptation if it were purely played for The Mask-style hijinks, but it still seems to want to say something Star Trekky about overcoming your fears and just how neat the plucky humans are with their maverick individualism even if they might not be as old or smart as all those older civilisations. Yes, once again it's how Americans like to see themselves and I suppose hence having Ryan Reynolds as the titular hero fits in nicely with this, leading the charge as a blandly beefy and earnest lunkhead of a quarterback. It's incredibly boring, probably even for 10-year-olds.

3/10