Green Lantern Blu-ray Review

• 12th Oct 2011

Green Lantern smashes onto Blu-ray this month in the guise of Ryan Reynolds far too smug hero Hal Jordan. Hal, like most superheroes, has daddy issues. But that won’t stop him going onto become a hero without fear (Although it is a worry that he is selected for the process as he spends most of the film being afraid emotionally).

Anyway – to set up the universe of Green Lantern would take longer than the Geoffrey Rush’s voice over at the start of the film. Basically each sector of the universe has a representative called a Green Lantern who helps keep the peace. There are thousands of them, literally.

When an ancient evil force is unleashed in the universe, one such Lantern is wounded and finds himself crashed on earth in search of a replacement. Enter pilot and all round daredevil Hal Jordan. Selected by a magic ring for the role of Green Lantern; he gets (through no choice) to take on the role, goes to outer space a few times and trains to become one of the best (naturally).

Through in a good looking, bendy girl, far too many special effects, a couple of villains and you have yourself a bit of a romp fit for the kids.  It’s perhaps a little too convoluted and cartoonlike for the big grown-ups to fully appreciate – this one is pretty much aimed at the lower teens, as it’s just so daft.

The supporting cast seem to be in two different films. The likes of Mark Strong take it all very seriously, whereas Peter Sarsgaard and Tim Robbins are clearly having far too much fun on set. The Blu-ray quality is obviously top notch – not to mention very loud!  So you won’t need to crack the volume too far up on this one. The effects actually look a little better on a smaller screen as opposed to the cinema. Perhaps a bit of compression has aided the cartoonery!

The DVD and Blu-ray do come with extras, but they were not available at this time for review.

Steven Hurst