GREEN LANTERN (PG-13 for minor sexual moments, plenty of bloodless violence in the comic book style): So you've probably read some of the review that called the latest comic-book-epic such things as, "Šjoyless," "silly," "utter nonsense," "lifeless" - and those are the kinder words used.
You can't argue with them because, in a way, when you look at it from their lofty positions which always want MORE. And yet, by allowing director Martin Campbell to embrace the script by Berlanti, Green & Guggenheim in his own way - that is, to see it as a BIG summer blockbuster in the tradition of the first Superman flick, to hype it with tongue-in-cheek, to purposely go overboard in every way, making it an exceptionally noisy, ultra flashy extravaganza and keeping it within its measly $150 million budget - it works!
It's not perfect, though. For one thing, its nearly two hours make it too long; the first half hour is overloaded with exposition and should be cut drastically to get us more speedily into the fun that zips toward the ubiquitous wham-bam-zowy-wow big battle scene between good & evil (between our hero, the new Green Lantern," & a monstrous multi-tenacled, roiling thing that mostly on the fear of others as its weapon), onward & upward (into the atmosphere, that is) ultimately setting us up for a sure-thing sequel, probably next summer.
What we have here is traditional Marvel Comics stuff: a test pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds with straight teeth & crooked smile - tongue planted firmly in cheek even when he gets into his Green Lantern mode) he's been chosen, you see, by the green ring of an ancient race of immortals who have divided the universe into 3600 units with one Green Lantern sustaining peace for each. One dies (or something like that) and Jordan is chosen to replace him. There follows physical and metaphysical training sessions ,and then - the TEST when the evil persona comes raging in to destroy the world. That's when things get noisier, faster, more destructive than any computer created work has devised of late.
Not that it's better than what the pundits tell us, but it's more consistently entertaining, thanks to the entire production crew, which is credited in an endless crawl at the end of the movie; It's a whopping lot of fun IF you take it with the same frame of mind as set forth by its makers. It's silly, sure, but so are the comics from which such films are made. (Grade: B+)