Principal Cast Ryan Reynolds -- Hal Jordan / Green Lantern Blake Lively -- Carol Ferris Peter Sarsgaard -- Hector Hammond Mark Strong -- Sinestro Tim Robbins -- Hammond Jay O. Sanders -- Carl Ferris Angela Bassett -- Doctor Waller Ratings Ratings are based on Rick's four star system. One star - the commercials are more entertaining than the viewing. Two stars - watch if you have nothing better to do. Three stars - good solid entertainment. Four stars - you never dreamed viewing could be this good.

Advertisement

The Green Lantern movie isn't as bad as I feared. I particularly liked the first face-to-face meeting between Green Lantern and Carol Ferris, where something happens that I've wanted to see happen for years.

The biggest weakness of the movie is that they go on and on about how a hero is not a man without fear, but a man who overcomes his fear. In other words, Green Lantern, the Man Without Fear, has been replaced by another damn sensitive post-modern hero who fights even while he is shaking in his boots. John Wayne never talked about his fear, he just punched you in the gut. I would have liked to see a movie Green Lantern who was a happy-go-lucky hero like John Wayne or Errol Flynn.

There was a time when Green Lantern was my favorite comic book in the whole, wide world. I had two letters in the letter column of issue #5, for which I won the original art to an entire issue (long since sold, alas). Now, I can't go back to that more innocent day, and the movie does nothing to transport you. But it is not as bad as the reviewers are saying. Really.

The best Green Lantern stories are still the three Green Lantern Corps stories written by Alan Moore.

There is a predictable credit cookie.

Rick Norwood is a mathematician and writer whose small press publishing house, Manuscript Press, has published books by Hal Clement, R.A. Lafferty, and Hal Foster. He is also the editor of Comics Revue Monthly, which publishes such classic comic strips as Flash Gordon, Sky Masters, Modesty Blaise, Tarzan, Odd Bodkins, Casey Ruggles, The Phantom, Gasoline Alley, Krazy Kat, Alley Oop, Little Orphan Annie, Barnaby, Buz Sawyer, and Steve Canyon.