Often when movies are taken from comic books, a premise that might have appealed initially can start to show it’s age and the resulting story is usually short on plot and exploding with cgi–both good and bad. Green Lantern, while falling down in some areas, manages to excel in others.

Starring a well muscled Ryan Reynolds who is now the new IT boy for Hollywood and a competent, now arrived Blake Lively doing the obligatory pretty faces thing. As usual the scriptwriters mistook borderline sociopath for careless thrill seeker and if not for the intervention of the mystical ring we would be seeing the hero headlining the most wanted list of the FBI.

The shallow characterisations do not end there, with a woefully underused Peter Sarsgaard, an almost irrelevant Tim Robbins, and cartoon like Jay O. Saunders. Mark Strong did what he could with a wooden Sinestro but if the story relied upon character alone it would not be worth the ticket price. However, Green Lantern is saved by two strong factors, one is the premise behind the power of the ring, it is an intelligent concept and while touched upon briefly engages enough to keep you watching. The other is the CGI–this is outstanding and makes for some exciting and fun viewing.

Ryan is allowed a few snatches of humour–reminding us that despite the muscles he does comedy ever so much better, Blake is allowed a few snatches of feisty which she does without snide, showing that the girl has talents hiding there. The story was too big for the movie and in reducing character it took from the plot which unfortunately gave the same old, same old of the superhero glut hitting the screens.

7/10 Saved by CGI