A parlor game could be made out of how many times the word "fear" is uttered in Martin Campbell's superhero franchise non-starter. In an instant, test pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds, his snark wasted on an awful script) is abducted in an emerald orb and propelled from brightest day to darkest night (or at least a different time zone), where he is deposited at the crash site of a dying, green-clad purple alien (Temuera Morrison) who hands him an infinitely powerful ring. When he wears it, Hal becomes a "green space cop" constrained only by his limited imagination, conjuring one lame 3D/CG effect after another as he combats Parallax, a swirling mass of gaseous dreadlocks that "possesses the yellow power of fear." But first, our reluctant hero with daddy issues must overcome his own — wait for it — fear. It's said that Hal's pilot father (Jon Tenney) overcame his with "courage." What the filmmakers should fear is their fate at the box office.
105 MINUTES | BOSTON COMMON + FENWAY + FRESH POND + CHESTNUT HILL + SUBURBS
