First up the recent Green Lantern movie with Ryan Reynolds. He's a hot shot test pilot with a bit of a wild streak. He gets fired for screwing up a test. Later that night he's captured by a glowing green ball of energy and taken to the dying pilot of a space craft. Hal's given the ring of Green Lantern Abin Sur and told the ring selected him and he's now got some responsibilities. Bummer, huh. Hal barely escapes before the government gets there and in a second story track we follow the dead alien to a secret lab where he's dissected by Peter Sarsgaard. Peter is the son of powerful Senator Tim Robbins. He's got issues with that but that's why he was selected for the job. During the choppy choppy he gets infected by something yellow and flashy in the body of Abin Sur. That yellow and flashy substance is a little bit of evil alien Paralax, an immortal corrupted by the power of fear, who's escaped his prison. When Paralax attacked Abin Sur he left a bit of himself in the wound. Paralax is now heading to Earth to get some payback on the lantern that attacked him. Ryan goes to the planet of the Green Lanterns and gets a bit of training. He's the first human and some of those lanterns aren't sure of him.Some of them are kind of assholes. Ryan is kind of an asshole himself so you'd think he'd fit in. He's still filled with fear and doubt and he leaves planning to quit. He'll be back slugging when Paralax comes to call on Earth. The story is fairly complex but you can follow along. There's a lot of daddy and romance issues. The effects are fairly good but I didn't care for some of their design. I didn't care for the costume that much. It's a noisy movie with a loud ass score. Someone seems to be crying out every few minutes. It didn't do well at the Box Office and I can see why. It's not totally entertaining and I doubt I would buy this now that I've seen it.
I might pick up The Three Musketeers by Paul W S Anderson. It's not your typical Dumas adaptation, there's plenty of goofy stuff going on in this one. The critics didn't like it much, and it didn't do well at the Box Office either. Quentin Tarantino said it was one of his favorite movies of 2011. I'm somewhere in between. Athos, Porthos and Aramis are on a mission for the King of France when the movie opens. They fail to get the plans for Leonardo Da Vinci's airship. They're bested by the Duke of Buckingham, played by Orlando Bloom, who had some help from Milady de Winter, Athos's double crossign girlfirend. Mila Jovovich plays her and Matthew MacFadyen plays Athos. Ray Stevenson plays Porthos and Luke Evans plays Aramis. When they get back to France Cardinal Richelieu, played by Christoph Waltz, disbands the Musketeers. A year passes and D'Artagnon, the son of a retired mustketeer, leaves for Paris to join up. Guess news doesn't travel well in those days. He gets in trouble with Captain Rocheford, the evil head of Richelieu guards, and nearly dies. He's saved by Milady who while an agent for Buckingham is a spy for Richelieu. D'Artagnon and the three musketeers meet up and get into some trouble. Luckily the King, a foppish teen, is flighty enough that he punishes them with a bag of gold and some new clothes. Buckingham arrives in his airship and we learn of a plot to frame the queen. She's the real power behind the king and Richelieu finds her annoying to say the least. He wants to take over and she needs to go. There's lots of fighting and flying ships and stuff blowing up. It's goofy but for the most part it worked for me. It might be a bit too long but at 111 minutes it isn't bloated like many of the summer blockbuster types. The D'Artagnon romance with the Queen's hand maiden could have been trimmed shorter and he could have been made less of a head strong young man. I've seen that enough of that character type. So generally it was fun, and while not great, I'm not sad to see it. I'd pick one up cheap sometime.
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