The new trailer for The Avengers hit the web today and I must say overall I’m pleased. It captures a nice taste of the dark grit that everyone is shilling for after the success of The Dark Knight, but doesn’t let go of the tongue-in-cheek geek humor from the earlier parts of the Marvel series. Plus, how can you not have a good joke tossed in when Robert Downey Jr. is there?
There was one other nice moment, although completely tossed in at the end as if they forgot it in the original cut, which was finally seeing Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk. I’m worried that overall he won’t play a very big part, but we’ll wait and see if that fear plays out.
What do you think of the trailer? Get excited to see the full flick?
This suit is powered by sheer will (and a fanny pack of 9-volt batteries)
Rating: 5 out of 10
Every trend in the movies goes through the same motions. They come out of left field when no one thought it would be a viable idea, then instantly becoming the most watched genre in years, finally over-extending itself to the point of pure silver screen saturation and the profits nose dive off the celluloid cliff. You can usually mark the first movie going over the edge by how far it pushes the genre out beyond the norm. For fans of the comic book genre, even knowing that Iron Man 3, Captain America and The Avengers are still on their way, this weekends superhero offering gave many pause, wondering if this was one spandex’d crusader too many. Did the curtain begin to fall?
Nope. Not quite yet.
Green Lantern tells the story of Hal Jordan, a reckless flyboy who is chosen by a magical ring to protect his planet from destruction. Never one to follow through on anything, Jordan must struggle to discover the hero he never imagined was waiting inside.
I was going to start with some of the struggles and hardships that this story and script had to work through, but really, let’s get down to the green, glowing tacks here…Ryan Reynolds. He is not just playing a superhero, the man actually is one. No matter how bad the dialogue, no matter how convoluted the script, no matter what crazy situation you put him in, his charm and nearly flawless ease on screen allows him to raise that bar a little higher. I’m not saying that all these things were necessarily terrible here, but they could have been and Reynolds still would have found a way to make it work. Following his career since the Van Wilder days, Reynolds has never failed to enliven each and every project and provide at least one or two solid moments of wit and enjoyment on screen. For his generation of actors, I believe he is the closest they will get to George Clooney, a man who can truly balance comedy, action and drama all while looking like he was born to play that part.
Now that we have that out of the way, back to the problems. With all the comic book movies capturing the audiences recently, most are earth-bound or at least set mostly in an environment we can all easily recognize. Thor was the first in the new battalion of superhero flicks to test the waters of magical landscapes and far away universes and it succeeded fairly well. Without that preceding it, Green Lantern might have suffered more by spending so much time in outer space, but Thor built a bridge to that arena (and then busted it at the end of the movie…*in-joke*) so Green Lantern flew right over and pushed even farther out into the cosmos. Instead, the surrounding characters and subplots became the weakest links. Sadly the first half of the movie had to do so much of the heavy lifting: establishing the universe, literally, and giving some foundation for all these new and outlandish creatures, while still getting enough time to bring in their human counterparts back home. Peter Sarsgaard pulled out some decent angst and rage, but was never given enough time to really fuel the fire. Even worse was Blake Lively, who was given absolutely no room to breathe in a virtually lifeless character. Her introduction as a fellow fighter pilot was painfully unnecessary and forced her to try and work her way back into relevancy, which might have worked if given time, but she really wasn’t. As for the arch-villain CGI cloud creature, Parallax, the effects were impressive, but the story behind him felt flawed and unstable, so he never brought a whole lot of weight or tension to the scenes.
Overall, I still give this a five rating because it brings us back to those true summertime carefree flicks that didn’t try to give more than we bargained for. People who say this is a failure because it isn’t Dark Knight are making unfair and outlandish comparisons. Director Martin Campbell (who helmed two of the more successful recent Bond chapters, Goldeneye and Casino Royale) wasn’t going for grit and bones, he wanted light, fun and entertaining for the few moments he had you trapped in the theater. In that context, and with the effortless abilities of Ryan Reynolds, they achieved their goal, albeit one set far lower than what audiences may have envisioned.
The End of the Page recommendation: Green Lantern may hold a little more light for the comic book enthusiast, but for the mainstream moviegoer, this is only a mildly flickering flame, not a bright light of the summer.
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 9:49 am. Add a comment
1 – This safety video shows what it was like in the good ole’ days, a time of purity, cheer and rabid wolverines in your pants. [via Today's Big Thing]
2 – Sometimes the people who make these prank or spoof videos without the knowledge of the people involved are walking the thin line between comedy and public abuse, but in this case, since the person they chose to mock is Gary Busey, the fine line they cross is between sanity and public safety. How they made it out of there with their spleens intact I will never know. [via FilmDrunk]
4 – There is a charity foundation for kids suffering from Proteus Syndrome, but it’s down at the moment. So until then I wanted to link to this site about the Alex Hoag Run, which is an event to honor the memory of an amazing boy who died due to complications from the syndrome. Please make the time to check this out and learn. [via Jon]
5 – Going above and beyond the recorded predictions, Iron Man tromped all over the box office this weekend with a $201 million dollar intake, making it the second highest opening for a non-sequel in history (only behind Spider-Man). Not bad for Robert Downey Jr. and crew. That kind of money can almost afford the amount they spent on WD-40 to keep the suit from squeaking during the shoot. Who would’ve thought? [via FilmDrunk]
6 – A gay teenager was voted onto the ballot for Prom Queen at his high school, but it turns out the school administration felt this was not legal in some fashion. Please stand back while I now put on my “shocked” face. [via Perez Hilton via WISN]
7 – This somehow feels absolutely perfect for a Monday morning strip (even though I didn’t post it until Tuesday morning, consider it Daylight Savings Day). [via Garfield Minus Garfield]
8 – Can San Diego really take more Ron Burgundy? Well those hep cats better figure it out soon, because he’s on his way. The whispers are flying around that Anchorman 2 will be made after Adam McKay finishes his current project. I’m not sure this is a comedy that can stand a sequel, but then again, it’s Will Ferrell, who would pretty much do the sequel to a Life cereal commercial. [via ComingSoon]
10 – The desperate souls behind Terminator 4 have announced they are shooting for a PG-13 rating. I know some people out there are going to be mad, but let’s face facts, they are praying for some serious box office revenue here and PG-13 movies will always beat the crap out of R ratings due to the availability of the whole family coming instead of just the older children. Plus, it’s McG, so we couldn’t have hoped for anything cool in the R rating anyway. I’m half expecting the whole movie to be a video game. [via FilmDrunk]
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Posted 3 years, 9 months ago at 7:00 am. Add a comment
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