It's time to save Ryan Reynolds from the comic-book blockbuster or, more broadly, from the kinds of movies that are supposed to turn young men into stars, without really allowing them to be actors. Reynolds is almost good enough to stand up to the gargantuan tower of emptiness that is Green Lantern, but he's fighting a losing battle. Even though he's propped up by the most powerful force in the universe -- "the emerald energy of willpower," as the movie tells us, which sounds like something you can buy in a six-pack down at the Vitamin Shoppe -- there's no way Reynolds can carry the weight of this overblown 3D folly on his shoulders. It's not easy being green, not even for him.
Green Lantern, based on the DC comic-book series and directed by Martin Campbell (who, in the past, has made exemplary entertainments like Casino Royale and The Mask of Zorro), takes forever to get going and then goes nowhere. The obligatory opening voice-over explains who the Green Lantern Corps are: An elite, powerful force who protect peace and justice in the universe. There, aren't you glad you asked? But it turns out that a big, knobby-headed grouch force called Parallax is threatening the Corps -- it's already killed off a few of its members, much to the chagrin of Green Lantern Corps bigwig Sinestro (Mark Strong, looking rather sexy with his lightbulb-shaped head and Ronald Coleman mustache). What's more, the bravest Green Lantern warrior, Abin Sur (New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison), has crashed his spaceship on Earth and, in his dying moments, needs to find a successor. From the green ring he's wearing, he sends out a signal in the form of a flaming green Nerf ball. The ring will choose Hal Jordan (Reynolds), a scrappy test pilot, as the next Green Lantern. He will be the first human chosen for that honor, and Sinestro is none too happy about it -- you can tell by the flare of his nostrils.
Jordan is already having plenty of trouble on his home planet, with his lifelong love interest and fellow pilot Carol Ferris (a game but underused Blake Lively) -- the two just can't get it together. Later, there's more trouble when science nerd Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), who has also been in love with Carol Ferris all his life, develops a bulbous forehead that looks like a celery root and makes him do bad stuff. Meanwhile, Angela Bassett, as some random government science lady, skulks around looking miserable: This, apparently, is the best kind of role a terrific actress like Bassett can hope for these days.
The early moments of Green Lantern offered some hope that Campbell might be able to have some retro-fun with this material: The Green Lantern characters have been going strong since 1940, and in places, this Green Lantern flirts with a pleasingly fun, lo-fi Flash Gordon approach, particularly in the art deco touches that grace the picture's production design. But you can't make anything that's simply fun and lo-fi these days, especially in 3-D: Everything has to be big and overloaded, and Green Lantern is no exception. Shot by Dion Beebe -- a gifted cinematographer -- the movie suffers from that familiar cataract-veil murkiness of 3-D. The whole thing looks as if it were shot through a lens coated with a thin layer of mud.
The story, inasmuch as it exists, is cluttered and messy (it was written by Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim, and Michael Goldenberg) and basically involves Hal's shuttling back and forth between Earth and Sector 2814 (wherever that is). Even the Green Lantern itself, the totem that Hal uses to juice up his ring, is disappointing-looking: It's really sort of a Green Gewgaw, a souvenir of Murano circa 1968.
And yet in places, Green Lantern shows a yearning for the human touch. When Hal and Carol meet for a drink at a bar -- he's hoping to get back into her good graces after disappointing her one too many times -- the song that comes on the jukebox is the Fleetwoods' "Come Softly to Me." Reynolds' Hal sings along, a bit out of tune but nevertheless keyed in to Gary Troxel's aura of interplanetary longing.
In fact, almost everything Reynolds does is too good for the movie around him. When he sits down with that Green Lantern and tries to recite the all-important oath that will kickstart his emerald powers, he can't help botching it: "I pledge allegiance to a lantern," he begins, "that I got from a dying purple alien. In a swamp." He works at it until he gets it right, which isn't just the Hal way, but the Reynolds way. Time and again, I've been primed to dislike Reynolds: I know he's supposed to be exceedingly handsome, but he's always reminded me a little of Butthead -- maybe it's the fact that his eyes are a little too close together. Yet I always end up liking him: He's wonderful as the miraculously not-dull love interest in the Sandra Bullock romantic comedy The Proposal, and as the older-dude hotshot of Adventureland. He even gives his all in Rodrigo Cortés' manipulative novelty shocker Buried.
And in Green Lantern, he's always something to watch, even when the movie around him falters, stumbles or simply glows an insipid yellow. After he saves Carol from certain death while wearing his lambent green Green Lantern getup, he later reappears on the terrace outside her office to check up on her. At first, she doesn't recognize him as her lifelong friend, and she's temporarily taken aback by the sight of his chiseled Lego pecs encased in dazzling green Glo-Stick material. For kicks, he plays the old-time western hero with her: "Just doing my job. No thanks necessary, miss." There's something about the ridiculous suit, the semi-anonymity of the glued-on green mask, that bring out the cutup in Hal, and in Reynolds. He never takes himself too seriously in Green Lantern, and his "Who, me?" nonchalance makes him devilishly appealing. He's a hardworking actor who pulls off the illusion of never trying too hard. Against the 3-D murk of the movie around him, he's a luminous, multidimensional presence.