Green Lantern

      As much as I enjoy comic books and the movies based on those comic books Green Lantern (2011) is not one that I am very familiar with at all.  So watching the movie was really my first introduction to this particular super hero. Knowing that, I can’t say how well it follows the comic book or the legends of the Green Lantern. 
      The introduction was really interesting.  I didn’t know anything about the Guardians or that there were like 3,600 Green Lanterns. Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal, Smokin’ Aces, Buried) plays the Green Lantern.  I really like him and enjoyed his performance. The story line is interesting and entertaining.  It is fast paced with a lot of action, but still tries to focus on the emotional side of the story as well. 
      There is a very interesting story about what exactly the Green Lantern is and what the ring is.  Hal, Ryan’s character, learns that the color yellow is the power of fear and green is the power of will.  The ring is connected to all of the will in the universe that the guardians have collected.  The guardians are the keepers of peace, order and justice throughout the universe.  One of the guardians tried to harness the power of fear and it turned him evil.  What an interesting concept.  Hal is told that, “Your will turns thought into reality, the rings limits are only what you can imagine ….. Your constructs are only as strong as your will”  There is so much you could analyze and read into with all of that! Fascinating!
      Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile, Armageddon, Sin City) provides the voice for Kilowog.  He is a very funny character who is going to “train” Hal. Love his voice! It made me chuckle when he said “welcome to ring slinging one oh one or as I like to call it the worst day of your worthless life.” The soundtrack is really good and so is the score.  James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense, The Fugitive, Unbreakable) wrote the score.  It is really beautiful.
      I find it interesting how many super hero movies deal with father son issues.  I don’t have a son or a brother so I am not familiar with that dynamic but it is repeated over and over in comic books. Just kind of an interesting thought.  The Green Lantern has two different aspects of this dynamic. It is interesting to see those stories unfold and they way in which they chose to tell them.