Green Lantern - Zero Stars

Zero. Zero chemistry between leads; zero action; zero fun; zero humor; zero excitement; zero plot; zero cool; zero subtlety; zero intelligence; zero logic; zero narrative coherence; zero talent displayed; zero passable effects; zero effect on the audience who possess zero interest in the characters, zero interest in absorbing any of the crummy images put up on the screen, zero interest in fighting the urge to allow sleep to overcome them, zero interest in paying attention to some truly shit dialogue, unnecessary flashbacks, uneven and confusing introductions/uses of powers, ugly green imaginary weapons, unimpressive set pieces, lousy set/costume design, a villain that is more scary in the unintentional sense of more closely resembling the set of dreadlocks found on the head of some jackass wearing a tie-died shirt and trying to sell me on the benefits of organic toilet paper when I was in college than an evil, menacing entity bent on world-- no, UNIVERSE domination in a movie that looks less like it's based on a popular comic book series than on a line of generic action figures from the dollar store. Zero heart; zero grace; zero subtlety; zero wit; zero ambition; zero effort... Zero stars. And most importantly, zero desire for the surely shit sequel that was shamelessly teased during the end credits.

Robin Hood - 1/2*

It seems that Russel Crowe feels indebted to Ridley Scott for directing the movie that won him an Oscar... why else would he agree to star in the three-hour dark origin story of Robin Hood after being in three subsequent Ridley Scott duds? This triumph of tedium is like an amalgamation of all of the boring political power struggle subplot scenes from Gladiator interrupted by confusing battle scenes with no context. The movie takes place in about forty-six different locations that all look exactly the same, making it even more difficult to decipher which characters come from where, whose side they're on, where they're going, why they're going, or what's awaiting them at the destination, especially when you're just looking for some recognizable Robin Hood in all of the mess. I'm not one to push for strict adaptations, but I appreciate a little help from the filmmakers in the form of anything remotely similar to the source material. The film should have been called Medieval Serf, because even after "The legend begins!" flashes on the screen at the very end, I'm still not sure how the events depicted in the film lead to this character becoming Robin Hood. To be honest, if common sense hadn't told me that the biggest star would play the title character, I'm not sure if, after watching this film, I would be able to say who actually played Robin Hood.

What's even more annoying is how the film relies on the audience's prior knowledge of the character that it is trying to redefine. Medieval Serf shoots maybe three arrows in the entire film and we're supposed to believe and take seriously in the end that, after fighting in a huge battle in the midst of which he finds his arch-enemy, some bald guy whose name I never caught, and fights him one-on-one on the shore of some Indecipherable European Body of Water, getting momentarily knocked out, plunging him under that water while Bald Guy gets away on a horse, that he could rise out of said water with blood in his eyes, and shoot an arrow some two-hundred yards and put it square in the back of Bald Guy's head. That I could accept in a lighter context, or if the character I was watching was actually Robin Hood. Not only would I accept it, but I would enjoy it.

With every great idea there follows a dozen inferior impostors trying to capitalize on its success, and here it feels like Ridley Scott is trying to do with Robin Hood what Christopher Nolan did with Batman. But does every iconic hero need a dark origin story? What Scott gets wrong is that he doesn't show us why this character was iconic in the first place, and what's worse is that he doesn't even give us the thrill of seeing an actual hero on the screen. Nolan gave us a reason to take Batman seriously, and if that didn't work for you, at least Bruce Wayne donned the costume and hit the streets for the last hour of the film. All we get in Robin Hood are muddled arguments between unfamiliar characters and flashbacks to Robin's father telling him to "Rise, and rise again until lambs become lions." Whatever that means. Maybe we'll find out in Medieval Outlaw in 2013.

Kick-Ass - ***

I think I like the new comic-book adaptation Kick-Ass a lot more when I'm not watching it. It's a movie that grows on you. I walked out of it feeling a little disappointed, and wrote down a list of complaints like, "I didn't like the kid in the lead role," "Feels low-rent," "Disjointed." But after a second viewing and a few weeks to ponder over the experience, I don't really feel too strongly about any one of those comments, and my list of praiseworthy details has maybe doubled since opening night.

While I can't say I loved the movie, the things that I loved about it are those which I recall most easily. Aaron Johnson, the kid in the lead role, really isn't that bad. I think it's just that he is upstaged by just about everyone else in the cast, most notably by Chloe Grace-Moretz as Hit-Girl, the eleven year-old sword-wielding assassin, and Mark Strong as the mob boss and ultimate target of the film's "real-life" superheroes. Strong gives what is probably my favorite performance of the year, with the perfect blend of menace and nonchalance, like when he leaves a brutal interrogation scene and tells his henchmen to kill the guy however they wish because he wants to catch a movie with his kid. In lesser hands it would come off as grim, but Strong somehow makes it laughable. And that's really when the film is at its best, when it can transform something that should be offensive into something entertaining. Hit-Girl and her father, Big Daddy (played superbly by Nicolas Cage), share a number of these scenes, making wholesome family fun out of asking for and receiving a butterfly knife for a birthday gift.

I think the problem I have while watching the film is that not all of it is handled with the grace that these scenes are, and so sometimes it felt like it was going from one extreme to another without giving me time to adjust. At times it goes from real danger to a happy-go-lucky action sequence in the blink of an eye, and that's where it feels disjointed; it shifts its momentum too quickly for everything to register. And that's where the difficulty in adaptation lies. It's easy to pull off a change in tone in a comic series, when there are natural breaks in the narrative and each issue can have its own feel, but a film is meant to be experienced as a whole, and so a story like this can maybe seem like a little too much. But I have to say that for all of it's flaws Kick-Ass still manages to be pretty awesome.