Summer's here, thus bringing blockbusters. This year is packed full of ‘em.

We've already had Thor (brilliantly overblown and very good), X-Men: First Class (a few narrative issues, but neither the less, good) and soon sees Transformers 3, Captain America, Super 8, Harry Potter 7, Cars 2 and Cowboys & Aliens. In between all this we find Green Lantern.

I'll start off by saying I did enjoy the film, it's by no means ground breaking, but it is in places, fun. However, it's also heavily steeped in problems. The main brunt of these coming from the muddled screenplay.

When Hal (the always brilliant Ryan Reynolds) is in costume (which looks brilliant, despite a weak showing in early trailers), throwing around glowing green 'constructs' or when the action is on the Lanterns planet of Oa, the film is great. Big scaled sci-fi the likes that havnt been seen since 'Star Trek'. But almost every time the action is set on Earth (bar the CGI-laden finale) the film grinds to a halt. 

This is mainly down to the fact that the screen writers (all 4 of them) fill the scenes with expository dialogue, making the thinly veiled supporting characters nothing more than faces regurgitating the plot. Add in he fact that Blake Lively may as well be made out of cardboard, rendering all the scenes between her and Reynolds laborious to watch.

There's just too many scenes where absolutely nothing happens. Ten minutes are spent at Hal's nephews birthday party early on in the film. This scene serves nothing to the overall plot, other than Hal's inspiration for his first public appearance in costume. Needless really, we don't need to see why Hal creates the race track...it reminded me of the 15 minutes of 'Wolverine' in which we learn where Logan got his jacket from...we just don't need that much detail, it sags the film down. This happens time and time again, just as the plot is gathering pace, it stops for 10 minutes so Hal can discuss his Daddy issues. 

Directors need to learn that not every superhero film needs to be all dark and moody. You can do complex characters within a lighter toned narrative. Save the heavy character stuff for the inevitable 'dark and gritty' sequel.

It really is a shame as Reynolds is the perfect guy for a film like this. He oozes charisma when he's on screen and easily carries the film (as he does in pretty much every film he's in...Blade Trinity, I'm looking at you). Mention also goes to Mark Strong and Peter Sarsgaard who do great in their roles too. 

This reads really negative, but I would happily recommend the film to comic book fans, I think there's definitely enough to keep you entertained, just a pity someone wasn’t more brutal with the editing, could’ve easily lost 25 mins and been a better film for it. Hopefully they'll get a chance at a sequel, so we can focus on the stronger (and no doubt more expensive) elements of this film: more of Oa and the other members of The Lanten Corps.

Mainly Kilowog. He was awesome.

Gav Weir
Forming my will into 140 character constructs of wisdom: @GavWeir