Critiquing the Critics: Green Lantern.

Hidy Ho neighbour.
Every so often there is a movie that just pisses off film critics, for whatever reason. And it never seems to make much sense me the slightly more than average filmgoer.* When this happens it seems almost as if the critics are colluding to destroy said movie. And despite what everyone says about how much they trust critics, it works. I don't think there is a great conspiracy or anything but when critics are unanimous it creates buzz. That is how a godawful peice of bovine droppings, like "Dances with Wolves" is considered a classic, and a movie that did the crime of being just okay, Like "Revenge of the Sith" is considered irrevocably awful. This is currently happening to the, until last weekend, biggest movie of the summer "Green Lantern"

Well your humble narrator, has just seen, this supposedly awful movie and you know what? It was pretty good, I would also say I liked it. I wouldn't say it was Damn good like earlier in the month's "X-men First class" but I thought it was at least "Thor" good (though it didn't have the Foo Fighters but I digress). Sure it had plot holes, but unlike some action movies, they never took away from my enjoyment of the movie. As I said above this movies only crime it that it was just okay, and I think it's pretty good which last I checked was a step above okay. It was a good entertaining superhero movie, that my brother whom is a bigger Green Lantern fan than me thought was true enough to the book, in fact he also likes the movie more than me.

I think the thing with the critics is two fold. Chritics Hate computer animation in live action movies, it's a fact just live with it. And this movie had a lot of computer animation. And second, I think critics are tired of superhero movies. Many have felt that superheroes where gaining critical mass this year with so many superhero and movies based on comics coming out the bottom had to give at some point and I think "Green Lantern" with it's more outlandish premise gave the critics their opening to express this subject fatigue.

So here's what I thought worked about it minor spoiler warning though I'll try not too. Ryan Reynolds was good, and he made this lighter Hal Jordon a joy to watch, in fact I kinda wish he was lighter like this in the comic as well. I in fact liked all of the casting especially Hector Hammond. I liked that they kept Sinestro as a good guy for the entire film, something that is very hard for super hero movies to do. I wish "X Men first class (the movie that will definatley have a sequel) did the same. The Action was good the constructs imaginative and fun, and yes the famous fist does make an appearance. I thought OA was cool looking as where the Gaurdians.

Now what I didn't feel worked. The computer animated costumes. As well designed and executed as they where, they never quite got to the point where you believed them, especially the mask. I also thought (and this is true of many summer movies) that the sub plots about the corps. would have made a better movie. Like many first superhero movies, it took a bit to get started, and wasn't particularly interesting until he met Abun Sur, (who was played by Jango frikkn Fett BTW).

Above all I think it's a good start up film that would probably have a bitchin' sequel. Kinda like how the abysmal "Batman Begins" led o the "Dark Knight". But will it get one? the actors are attached, but if the box office keeps going the way I hear it is (I don't watch figures I just hear about them in the abstract) it's unlikely and that makes me sad. But back to the present, if you wanted to see this movie don't let a bunch of pissed off critics, deter you from seeing it. If you want to see it, go see it! and make your own decision if it is good or bovine excretions.

That is all.

* Before you brand me an egotist for my slightly more than average filmgoer line, I call myself this because, I have written for comics and screen (student work when it comes to screen), and have been a storyboard artist. So I know a bit of what it takes to craft a film. I was not saying I was some sort of superior film viewing being.

image of course (c) 2011 Time Warner and DC Comics.

Star Tours 2.0

In 1987 a great theme park attraction opened. It was the first of it's kind a motion simulator, themed to the most popular movie series of the day, it became a classic. I'm of course talking about Star Tours at Disneyland. Words cannot express how awesome it was to ride that attraction as an eight year old boy in the summer of '87 even after an hour long line that went all the way to Main Street. But as time went on the attraction lost a bit of it's luster, like a movie you'd seen many times you knew all the jokes every bit of the adventure and even the bumps. It was still great but it was old. Then after many years Lucasfilm and Disney got back together to re make the attraction. It closed down last year, and we all rode one last trip to Endor, and hoped for the best. And on June third the best was delivered, Star Tours the Adventure Continues.
I actually didn't go on the attraction on opening day, I actually went to an annual passholder preview, held on the first of June. Myself and my family got to ride it four times and it was a rare case of catching lighting in a bottle twice, it was just as awesome as that day in 1987 except the line was no where near as long. The ride is so much the same yet completely new. For the Star Wars geeks the ride takes place between Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars, which is great since it can now use the whole breadth of the Star Wars Saga and it does. The Attraction is sort of a prequel to the original Star Tours ride. Star Tours is a brand new service that has been started, and the destination board now shows all of the wonderful places Star Tours can and will take you. The queue that used to take you through the garage now takes you through security, where there are many in jokes, as well as some good airport security humor. my favourite bit is our old pilot Rex being unpacked. Then your on to the ride, and here is where the promise of Star Tours comes to. There are 54 possible "trips" that can happen with a random selection at three (I think) points of deviation, and on my rides we went to Kasshykk, Tatooine, Geonosis, and Coruscant. As well as having run ins with a few favourite characters. The story which I will not spoil basically involves an unexpected pilot, an unwanted passenger and the adventure that follows. The films are great, much like the effects work in the prequel trilogy a mix of computer and miniatures and the look splendid. And did I mention it's in 3D, the 3D is great and does not "fall apart" when you tilt your head like on those 3D simulator rides that littered Vegas in the '90s the 3D is of the Avatar "looking out a window" variety and really helps to sell the immersiveness of the ride. I really think Walt Disney Imagineering and Industrial Light and Magic did a great job, and it's definitely worth going to Disneyland for. Now if the can just get the PeopleMover working again Tomorrowland will be great again.

Photo of course (c) Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm ltd.

Continuity Strikes Again.

DC comics has recently announced their plans in August to reboot 52 of their titles. Doing this, they are re-numbering them all to 1, and re starting the continuities of the books even giving some characters (unannounced yet who) revised origins. The reason the continuity is out of hand, and new readers need a jumping on point.

And the fanboys are freaking out.

"What where all of the crises, countdowns, 42s, 52s, and zero hours for then!" they say.

Well, the comic companies have gotten rather touchy about continuity lately. And have been trying to find new and interesting ways to give the legendary "new reader" a place to jump on. And this is just DC's new way of doing it.

What Do I think? well it pretty much is a "meh", I am pissed that it looks like Supergirl, my favorite DC comic is being canned, but really with DC it doesn't matter. Because this has all happened before. DC comics has been into re setting their continuities for years, hell they used to have a whole bunch of continuities going on at once, and if anything, the persistence of this is making continuity less and less important to the casual reader. It's already started if fact, if I where to ask you what are some of the greatest books by DC? you'd probably list... Dark Knight Returns, and All Star Superman in your top ten. And y'know what these are out of continuity books, in fact their better because of this. We won't even mention the countless film, radio, and television versions of the same characters. As I mentioned in an earlier post mainstream comics needs to get away from this enslavement by continuity, so this can be a good thing. Because all that should matter is that the stories are good.

Of course what of the fan boys? Fanboys like continuity because as well as the fiction itself we err they like to make lists of things, and when the books get rebooted all the work was for naught, for naught!!! err sorry. The same goes for re numbering. But really these things don't matter, because above all else it's the stories and characters that lure all of us, casual reader and fanboy alike. And the fact that DC has a chance of putting story first again is also good, and I won't worry about those fanboys as soon as they realize they can start another list and compare it to the old list they'll be pleased as punch.

And what of the ever elusive "new reader", I think that all comic companies are fretting way to much over this creature. We all where new readers at one point of time and if your under 50 years old you started with a book with a rich continuity already but because we liked something in the book we kept reading even though we didn't know everything that was going on. And not to get to deep into a "when I was your age" rant it was a lot harder then, or more fairly it's easier now, the new comic reader has two great tools, the trade paperback and wikipedia. The new reader can now pick up virtually any recent relatively self contained storyline, and many classic ones at their local bookshop and if they need to fill in any blanks look up the stuff on Wikipedia, and trust me as a recovering fanboy I can tell you their mostly correct. It's been said in many places around the blogosphere, if you want to find a good starting point on a comic go to a shop, Comic or otherwise, find a book that appeals to you read it, if you need to find out more fire up the wiki, if not just enjoy it. You are now a comic reader.

It'll be interesting to see what becomes of this experiment that DC is doing. It can be great, they can back pedal in six months, or it can be the beginning of a brand new era. As long as the stories good nothing else should matter.