Green Lantern - was it really all that bad?

When director Martin Campbell, noted for his success with James Bond and Zorro, took his first step into superhero territory with his 2011 take on DC's 'Green Lantern,' the results did not exactly set the world on fire. While it did ultimately more than recoup its $200 million budget at the global box office, before long critics and fans were largely writing the film off as yet another example of DC's perceived inability to make any character work onscreen except Batman (alongside 'Superman Returns,' 'Catwoman,' and their axed attempts at 'Wonder Woman' and 'Justice League').

It's not hard to see why, as there's a great deal about 'Green Lantern' that doesn't work. The convoluted plot struggles to adequately convey the character's complex, quirky, space-hopping universe; the CGI costume is undeniably silly-looking; Peter Saarsgard's villain isn't particularly compelling; and, given the film was released the same summer as Marvel's 'Thor' and 'Captain America,' superhero origin stories were growing painfully overfamiliar.

But all that notwithstanding, this writer for one doesn't think 'Green Lantern' is truly a bad film. Certainly it's deeply flawed, but it does have its strengths.

The key thing that works is the casting of Ryan Reynolds. With his rare blend of classic good looks and witty self-deprecation, he's an actor who is hard to dislike; if anyone can help sell so outlandish a concept as the Green Lantern Corps, it's him (we might say the same of Bradley Cooper, who was also in the running for the role). When proceedings get too weird and/or potentially silly, he's on hand with a wisecrack to deflate the situation; take his early struggle to recite the Green Lantern oath: "I pledge allegiance to a lantern that I got from a dying purple alien in a swamp…" His interplay with co-stars Blake Lively and Taika Waititi helps in this regard, such as when Waititi berates him for creating a Formula One car from green energy, and Lively points out the futility of the mask: "you don't think I would recognise you because I can't see your cheekbones?"

Also effective is the main villain, Parallax. While Saarsgard's mutant human go-between gets tedious, Parallax itself is a nemesis worthy of an interstellar superhero: an immense force of nature eating its way through space, whose climactic assault on earth - sucking up fleeing innocents, consuming their fear, reducing them to skeletons - is epic, effective stuff. Particularly after 'Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer' copped out on fully realising Marvel's cosmic villain Galactus, it's nice to have at least one such gargantuan über-baddie on screen.

Reynolds himself has spoken openly of the film's problems, telling Empire, "I saw how difficult it is make that (superhero) concept palatable, and how confused it all can be when you don't really know exactly where you're going with it," before professing uncertainty as to whether he would be interested in reprising the role in the proposed 'Justice League.' Given that - again, not unlike 'Superman Returns' - 'Green Lantern' is widely regarded a failure, conventional wisdom would dictate that, should 'Justice League' be made, the role would be recast; some speculate Reynolds' character Hal Jordan would be discarded altogether, in favour of DC's more recent incarnation of the Green Lantern, John Stewart, as almost played by Common in George Miller's cancelled 'Justice League' in 2008. But while 2011's 'Green Lantern' seems certain to be confined to the rubbish dump of superhero movie history (and not without some justification), let's hope that whoever takes the character on in the future takes heed of their predecessor's successes, as well as well as its failings.