Green Lantern

Superhero movies are like sharks – if they stop moving, they die. Ok, maybe not exactly like sharks. But in a movie like Green Lantern, if the audience is given too much time to realise quite how silly what they’re watching is, then they’ll give up.

Despite having fighting purple aliens, making giant fists out of magic rings and a phobia of the colour yellow, everything in Green Lantern feels flat.

An adaptation of the DC comic, Green Lantern is the story of jet fighter pilot Hal Jordan, who reluctantly takes the place of Earth's protector as part of the Green Lantern Corps, a team of intergalactic space cops.

After a good set up, Green Lantern seems like it has all the ingredients, but ultimately spends too much time faffing about with Jordan's dull love life and boring baddies.

Ryan Reynolds is likeable enough as the man in the horrible CGI green tights, but his slacker superhero seems as bored with the whole thing as we are. Basically Top Gun’s Maverick in Space, he’s no different than cinema's countless other lovable rogues who come good in the end.

The one thing that does set Green Lantern apart from say, Superman or Thor, is his power-ring's unique ability to create whatever objects he can imagine - a race car to rescue an out of control helicopter, water to soften the landing of a falling damsel in distress or a brick wall to hide behind. This means Green Lantern has to out think his enemies, rather than just BIFF POW his way out of danger.

But sequences like this, and Hal's Green Lantern training on their home planet, which should have been fun are cut short in favour of lengthy chats between his tough guy boss Sinestro and six funny blue people who sit on massive pillars.

Add to this a very ineffectual villain in Peter Sarsgaard's mutated mad scientist Hector Hammond, and you've got a bona fide snooze-fest.


Green Lantern always never rises above ordinary, and seems satisified with that, almost as if it’s bored with itself. It has the audience in its grasp, but never goes in for the kill.

And that's something you could never say about a shark.

X MEN: FIRST CLASS

Ever wondered what Professor X and Magento were like when they were young? No me neither.

Well they've made X-Men: First Class anyway - it's a prequel to the X-Men movies of the 2000s, set in the 1960s during the Cuban missile crisis.

Young Charles (Professor X) is a little toff who goes off to Oxford, while young Erik (Magneto) is really angry about an evil Nazi (Kevin Bacon) who killed his mum. At one point he's so angry he throws a coin at a terrible pencil drawing of Kevin Bacon's face. I don't know where he got the drawing from, but it looks like he paid one of those rubbish caricaturists in Leicester Square 10 euros for it

(Charles can read minds - BUT only when he puts two fingers on his left temple.
In one part of the film he had to read someone's mind secretly so has to pretend to be putting his head in hands - that fools them! However, this means you could easily defeat Prof X - the world's most powerful psychic remember - by just tying his hands behind his back.)

They're brought together by the C.I.A. who co-opt the gang to help round up some more mutants and then go after Kevin Bacon.

Somehow Kevin had become young and American and changed his name to Sebastian Shaw. He's got nice hair and is the leader of the Hellfire Club - a bunch of bad mutants who want to trick the US and Russia into starting a nuclear war and wiping out human life. Then Kevin can rule over the world! Sadly the world will then be a pile of radioactive rubbish and not really worth ruling. BUT DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT.

Luckily Kevin has got a special metal hat that stops anyone reading his brain, so again Charles' power is rendered completely useless.

There are two excellent montage sequences in X-Men: First Class. One where Charles and Erik ponce around the world rounding up mutants for their team to the sound of some Sixties jazz-funk. They are:

Darwin - his body will adapt to any envirnoment. He uses it to stick his head in a fish tank and to turn into rock when someone hits him with a stick. THEN HE DIES.

Angel - she's got a magic tatoo that turns into butterfly wings so she can fly(And she can also spit balls of fire from her mouth)

Havoc - fires boring energy from his chest. Mostly useless. When will they learn that energy based mutant powers ARE BORING.

Mystique - can change her appearance to look like anything. She uses this power ONCE in the film against the bad guys. The rest of the time she just turns blue, then fleshy, then blue again.

Banshee - he can scream loudly - and fly too but only when wearing his flappy costume. If it gets ripped, then he just goes back to screaming loudly again. LIKE A BIG BABY.

Beast - got big feet. At one point Beast actually says the immortal line: 'But will the world ever be able to accept my big feet?'. Listen, his big feet are pretty big and not very attractive, but I reckon the world probably would accept his big feet. One of his mates can turn into a fish, but he's more worried about having big feet.

In the second montage, Charles trains all the X-Men to use their powers. Beast runs round the block, Havoc sets fire to a mannequin, Mystique just turns blue again and Magneto makes a satalitte dish turn round. Great for getting a better reception for Sky Sports but quite useless for preventing WWIII.

In the end all the good mutants and the evil mutants and the US/Russian armies have a big stand-off. Erik nicks Kevin Bacon's special hat, ditches Charles and buggers off with all the best mutants. THE END. (Or is it?)

So basically First Class is a bit like a remake of the first X-Men film, if you subsitute Wolverine (the angry, revenge seeking mutant that's hard to control) for Erik, and Sebastian Shaw (the evil, human-hating mutant with designs on world domination) for Magneto. Add in Mystique as the Rogue analouge, and it's pretty much the same film but this time they only spent 2p on the special effects.

X-Men: First Class is alright - I will award it 4 out of 7.

Dark Knight Rises

Ooooh what's going to happen in the new Batman film? Will Robin be in it? Will the bat-suits have nipples on this time? Will it be as boring as Inception? Will Christian Bale speak in a less-growly voice this time so we might actually understand some of Batman's dialogue?

CALM DOWN BAT-FANS. The answers are all contained in this out-of-print graphic novel (right). I guarantee this is exactly what will more-or-less probably happen in The Dark Knight Rises, out next year:

Batman is on the run, with the Gotham Police Department charged with bringing him in. Reluctantly, Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) heads up the Anti-Batman task force.

Second in command is Max Cort, (Tom Hardy), a cop set on hunting down and unmasking Batman.

When Cort goes to police psychiatrist Prof Hugo Strange (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) for treatment for his growing hatred of costumed vigilantes, Strange injects him with his 'Venom' drug, turning him into a costumed vigilante himself - Bane.

A prowler, Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), is sighted on the streets of Gotham. Thinking she's an associate of Batman, Bane attacks Catwoman, who is saved by Batman. (NOTE: BATMAN AND CATWOMAN MAY OR MAY NOT KISS AT THIS POINT. IF THIS DOES HAPPEN, BATMAN WILL QUICKLY PULL AWAY AND LOOK ANGRY)


Strange orders Bane/Cort to kidnap the Mayor's daughter to frame Batman. While trying to save her, Batman is injected with Strange's Venom drug and flashback to the murder of his parents. This causes him to question the nature of his vigilantism. Rescued by Alfred (Michael Caine), he rationalizes that being Batman represents an act of sanity and order that defies the madness and chaos represented by crime, he goes after Strange and Bane.

Meanwhile, with the help of Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) Batman creates a new streamlined 'bat-mobile'.

In a final battle Batman defeats Bane with the help of Catwoman and reveals Cort and Strange's evil plan.

Batman is exonerated, but Gordon tells him there will always be those who seek to destroy him.

THE END. There you go, you now owe me £12, a massive box of weakly flavoured popcorn and 3hrs of your life.

Superman Returns

Superman Returns begins as our hero gets back from a holiday in space to find no one really missed him. Even his ex-girlfriend Lois Lane is married off to the bloke who plays Cyclops out of the X-Men.

She obviously has quite bad taste in men - they are two of the dullest super-heroes ever.

Superman was always boring because he was invincible, which made sorting out any world-threatening problems pretty simple.

The other boring thing about Superman is his non-disguise. Some idiots like to mock the people of Metropolis for not realising that Clark Kent is Superman. After all, his disguise consists solely of a pair of glasses and some hair gel. Superman has seen Batman's disguise, you know. He's seen it and he still decided to just go with the glasses. They are a lot easier to take on and off. Also Superman wears his costume under his clothes which is a bit risky if he ever goes to the gym or spills coffee down his shirt. BUT Superman does not NEED a disguise because no one expects him to have a secret identity! Why would you expect that? You would expect it off Batman precisely because he -does- wear a mask. But because Superman doesn't, people just think he is Superman all the time, with no alter-ego. (If Batman tried beating people up without his mask on, people would just say 'why is millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne doing that?. And why is he hanging around with Robin?')

So now you see why Superman's "non-disguise" is so clever.



Anyway, in this film, Lex Luthor invents some sort of magic island out of space crystals.

WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM?

The only people in the film that actually know or care about the island scheme are Superman and Lois Lane. And that is only because they happen to be around at the time. Despite Lex Luthor repeatedly telling us 'billions of people will die!' there is never any sense of real danger - all he does is make an island in the middle of the ocean - made of kryptonite (which, by the way, is harmless to all humans).



Oh well, at least by making it out of kryptonite Lex has stopped Superman from simply picking it up and throwing it into the sun, right?

Sorry - what's that? For some unknown reason the kryptonite doesn't affect Superman when he's underneath it? Unlucky Luthor! You forgot about that didn't you? In your face!

(Watch out for the especially pointless part of the film here when Superman flies to the island, rescues Lois, then she flies back to the mainland, then suddenly changes her mind, flies back to the island AGAIN, picks up Superman, flies back to the mainland with him, and then he changes his mind and flies back to the island. AGAIN.)

Actually, the kryptonite must have hurt Superman a little bit because he has to go to hospital afterwards to recover. It must be because of all the special anti-kryptonite poisoning medicine they have at all earth hospitals. It is standard. So Superman lays in a hospital bed for a bit and then he is okay again, just enough time to annoy Lois, taunting his presence in her face before flying off, leaving her confused and heart broken.

Superman Returns is supposed to be about old lovers returning and stirring up old feelings. But this theme is left completely unresolved. Lois is still in love with Superman but she also quite likes her husband, so everyone is left a bit miserable at the end. Thank God that evil island was sorted out though. I was worried about that.

Mark Out Of Seven: 2