I just watched the Green Lantern and I’ve gotta say its probably one of the best films I’ve ever seen…no, no, no, I’m completely lying! Its one of the worst films ever. The first 10 minuets were a crazy mixture of Star Wars meets Duke’s of Hazard meets Top Gun! The film was a disconjointed mess full of a bunch of silly one liners and way too much exposition. Where they could have been showing stuff they chose to quickly explain the history of the Green Lantern with a voice over by someone who sounded like Jor-el from the Donner Superman film. The first hour of the film just felt like it didn’t know how to take off, like pushing a train up a hill. The Film went all over the place as if whoever was editing the film forgot to put things in their proper order. Its some ten minuets after Reynolds has the Ring and he gets into a bar fight (typical) that he is for no reason whooshed away into deep space and is downloaded with all the information on the galaxy. Next he goes to a random assembly where we learn of a ‘great evil’ that has come and that someone must be done, only to swap to Reynolds learning to use his powers, then he goes back to earth and chills until coincidence causes him to use his powers.                                                                                           But the real kicker is when the Green Lantern finds out that the evil force is coming to earth and goes to get aid from his fellow Green Lanterns and they just turn him away…which didn’t make a lot of sense, if they are inter-galactic police officers surely you can call for back up? 

His suite was okay, but I don’t like the idea of a CGI costume. Feels like it takes away from the reality of it. I’d say for an actor to get into the role better, they need to be inside a suite, imagine a CGI Superman suite or Batman, it’d be weird. But the worst part was the mask. Its simply awful! And wasn’t much of a disguise.

Sorry but Reynolds just isn’t a a good enough actor to portray a super hero. 

The two main villains in the film were Hector Hammond and Parallax. Hector was anything but sinister, rather he was the elephant man on acid who screamed like a tiny little girl every five seconds. It was so off putting that I nearly gave up and stopped watching. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more non-menacing, annoying childish villain in my life. There was no build up to his rise into the role of nemesis it just suddenly happened. Had the ‘real’ Green Lantern come into contact with this villain, the fight would have been over in about 2 seconds…basically they tried way to hard to make him a threat when in reality he was anything but one. 

Hector: 

Elephant Man:

Parallax, where do I begin. He felt like a cheep rip off of Galactus from the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. It was a big large cloud that descends on earth, that is it. In fact the way the Green Lantern defeats Parallax is virtually identical to how the Silver Surfer defeats Galactus in the second fantastic four film. The film should have been building up for this epic battle but instead wasted time on pointless backstory, a meaningless love story, cheesy one-liners, and a non-menacing elephant man lunatic. 

Top: Galactus, F4. Bottom: Green Lantern attacking:

Reynolds was probably one of the worst casting choices for this role. He’s not a versatile actor and is pretty much the same character in every film. There is no difference between his role in Green Lantern and his role in The Proposal, he simply can not act. His constant need to end every scene with a one liner got old after about 1 one minuet. His big reveal as the Green Lantern, which was laughable and not dramatic, wasn’t even until an hour into the film, and for a film that is 1 hour and 40 minuets, thats not good. And as for the supporting cast they were just as cheesy and dull as Reynolds with nothing memorable about them. In fact, I couldn’t even tell you their names, and I’ve literally just seen the film, thats who unimportant they are.  

Over all, it was a very boring, dull, and unimaginative film. Which is ironic since the Green Lantern’s biggest weapon is his imagination. You can see why MARVEL is winning the movie race against DC. DC fails to deliver not good, not even adequate superhero films. You can count on one hand the amount of good DC films spanning from the 70’s until now. It’s truly a shame I’d say this film is worth about half a star. I look forward to the day when this film is rebooted and done properly. 

The fourth instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is hands down the dullest of the films. The main plot for the last two films dealt with the fading out of Piracy, and this film shows that Pirates of the Caribbean is over. 

One of the biggest flaws with this film is the lack of familiarity. Apart from Jack, Gibbs, and Barbossa there is no returning cast members, not even the famous Black Pearl, which was such a prized treasure of the first three films. 

Jack is running around england, Barbossa is working for the Royal Crown, and Angelica (Cruz) is recruiting under Jack’s name. In a story that feels very forced, Jack is tricked to aid Angelica, Blackbeard’s Daughter, into looking for the fountain of youth on board the famous Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard’s ship. Jack is nothing more than a witty crew member with no real goal in the entire film. It’s almost like a reality T.V. show followed Jack around and this is what we see…a whole lot of nothing. 

With three groups, Blackbeard’s crew, Barbossa’s crew, and the hardly mentioned Spanish crew all searching for the Fountain, the reasons become rather cliched. Blackbeard is running from a prophesy that the ‘one legged man will kill him’ (ironic that Barbossa happens to have that wooden leg, so no mystery there), Barbossa wants revenge on Blackbeard for kidnapping the Black Pearl and trapping it in a glass bottle (because Blackbeard is not a pirate but a magician), and the Spanish are nothing but holy rollers who see the Fountain as an evil river of life.

The new characters were incredibly underdeveloped; Angelica, Blackbeard, the Minister, and the mermaid all felt forced upon the audience as if we were suppose to enjoy them, but realistically they were just annoying. Angelica is mad at Jack for taking her virginity (wasn’t pirates suppose to be geared for Children?) Blackbeard hides in his cabin for most of the film (wasn’t he the scariest pirates of all time?) the Minister falls in love with the mermaid just because he sees her naked (again, Disney, Pirates, Children?) and the Mermaid needs to shed one tear (there were enough tears of pain from the audience to solve that problem). 

By the end when Barbossa has his revenge and Blackbeard is dying, naturally Angelica is facing death too while Jack is frantically trying to complete the fountain of youth ritual. Next the typical one glass is poison, one glass is the antidote comes into play. Blackbeard selfishly drinks what he thinks is the Fountain of Youth, while Angelica drink the bad water, but of course we all know that the cups are switched and Blackbeard dies while Jack is not tempted once by the fountain of youth. 

As much time as Jack wasted in the first 3 films wanting to be the most memorable pirate and wanting to live forever he isn’t even fussed about the fountain being right in front of him. The ending was an anti-climax with no big reveal. The biggest cringing moment was at the end when Jack and Gibbs reunite, after Gibbs had stolen all the ships in a bottle from Blackbeard’s ship, now Barbossa’s. Then to end with a bang Jack turns to Gibbs and says, “A pirates life for me,” screen fades to black and I want to fall over dead. 

If I had the choice of watching pirates 4 again and gaining eternal life or simply dying, I think I’d choose death. Rob Marshal (director) clearly tired to cash in on the already established franchise by adding pointless underdeveloped characters and plot lines. It was a truly exhausting film that made you miss the silliness of Will and Elizabeth. Every word Jack uttered felt forced, as if someone was trying to be Jack but not doing it very well. 

On Stranger Tides is nothing but a cheap rip-off of a book fused with Disney characters and Blackbeard. By the end you feel like you’ve sat through twice the length of the previous films and are left flabbergasted at how awful it was. Hopefully this puts a long needed rest to the Pirates franchise as it clearly needs it. Mediocre scripts and acting is not enough to carry something that was so special in its debut in 2003.