Who the Fuck Decided Ryan Reynolds Would Be a Good Hal Jordan in the Green Lantern Movie?!

I know what you’re thinking. “Who the hell are Ryan Reynolds, Hal Jordan, and Green Lantern?” If you’re part of the one percent of the world that cares about comic book superheroes and their characterization in other media, then you might be thinking, “Here we go again, another vitriolic blog about how untalented Ryan Reynolds is and how unfit he is to wear the emerald ring of the Green Lantern.” If that’s you, I’m picturing you wearing a plastic viking helmet and a tight Camel cigarettes t-shirt from 1992 while sipping a 64 oz. Slurpee from 7-11. Just so you know.

This is not another essay about how Ryan Reynolds is a talentless hack who isn’t fit to wear Green Lantern’s domino mask. I mean, Ryan Reynolds is a talentless hack, but that isn’t why he’s poorly suited for the role. It’s not like I expected Harrison Ford to get it, there’s no point in using a good actor for a role that consists mainly of feigning astonishment at the cgi objects your magic ring will create in post-production. No, my problem isn’t with Ryan Reynolds being Green Lantern at all, it’s with his being Hal Jordan. Because anyone that knows anything about Green Lantern would say that Ryan Reynolds would make a better Guy Gardner.

It’s not exactly common knowledge that there’s more than one Green Lantern. There are dozens, in fact, each belonging to the Green Lantern Corps, an interstellar police force that keeps people from parking spaceships in the wrong dimension or something. Space is divided into sectors, and each sector has one Green Lantern to patrol it, except (of course) whatever sector contains Earth. For some reason, our sector requires several Green Lanterns to patrol it, Hal Jordan being only the first (well, second really…but I’m not going to get into that bullshit again). There’s also John Stewart, a rare Black superhero that doesn’t have the word “Black” in his name, and there’s a relatively new Green Lantern named Kyle Rayner, who is a cartoonist or something. There was even a chick Green Lantern named Jade and a leprechaun Green Lantern who served for a special issue called Ganthet’s Tale.

You really have to wonder why unemployment is so high when the Green Lantern Corps is hiring left and right. Who isn’t a member of this goddamned space clique? Anyway, yet another Earthling member is named Guy Gardner. He’s kind of the hard ass of the Green Lantern Gang, he’s got red hair (and is therefore a fiery, temperamental Irish lad) and wears a leather jacket and generally clashes with authority. He’s kind of a wry prankster with a violent streak, which is exactly the kind of role Ryan Reynolds was born to play! He’d be like Van Wilder meets George Lutz from The Amityville Horror. His brand of quipping douchebag would fit the role nicely.

Why there are so many fucking Green Lanterns patrolling Earth is really beyond me. The Justice League cartoon switched over to John Stewart as their primary Green Lantern because the producers knew that his being Black is the only thing that makes the character remotely interesting. With this summer’s movie we’ve got a mediocre actor portraying a fairly boring white dude. I hope there’s a lot of space boob in this movie.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 Is Okay

When I was in junior high school, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fever was just beginning. I was a fan of the original independent, black and white comic book by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, and collected the first four trade editions. The crude drawing, violence, and obvious X-Men parody spoke to my restless, half-assed pubescence. Around 1988, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles exploded into the mainstream with a new cartoon series and toy line aimed at much smaller children. Like any good teenager, I summarily rejected the whole franchise and moved on to stealing beer from my father and writing on walls with spray paint.

So I never saw the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and also missed its sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze. You can’t really blame me, I was sixteen when it came out. If I’d gone to see it, I probably would have spent the whole time in the back of the theater clumsily trying to finger some girl through her stretch pants. The movie featured Vanilla Ice, at the time my mortal enemy in a valorous, single-minded crusade to save hip-hop. And on top of that, it was the mutant turtles with the differently-colored eye masks, not the cool ones with all red eye masks from the original comics (which were in black and white, but the covers were colored.) It never occurred to me to watch this obvious kid’s movie when more dramatic fare like Juice and Jurassic Park was in the theaters.

It was on cable the other day, so I figured I’d give Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze a shot. You know what? It wasn’t half bad. To be sure, it was pandering claptrap, largely designed to sell more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys and bedsheets. But if we accept that as a given, then it can be seen as a pretty good bit of pandering claptrap, well-paced and reasonably interesting with some awesome acrobatics that people do entirely ensconced in some very uncomfortable-looking foam rubber costumes.

The plot is not really consequential: an old villain thought dead returns to fuck the turtles up, and they rebuke him while also uncovering their own mutant origins. Hint: it has something to do with the ooze. More impressive are the stunts, some really good high-flying choreography done by people in bulky rubber suits. With shells on the back, to boot! Really, it must be seen to be believed. I vaguely recall the movie reviews making a big deal of the stunts when this film came out, and with good reason. Even the animatronic turtle faces didn’t look too weird. I mean, once you’ve accepted that we should befriend mutated animals, we can forgive the fact that they look a little like Teddy Ruxpin when they talk.

The one weird plot point in the movie, and it isn’t as much a detraction as it is confusing, is the introduction of the kid pictured above. I don’t remember his name, but he was a pizza delivery kid who also knew kung-fu that got needlessly mixed up in the turtles’ shit. I guess he was there so kids would have someone to identify with, but his existence in the film was superfluous and mildly annoying. Even with this weird addition to the cast, the movie was quite enjoyable. I wouldn’t go out of my way or pay anything extra to see it, but if you’re even slightly curious, fear not: you won’t be completely bored.

And you know, it’s been a long time, I no longer give a shit about protecting whatever values I wanted to impose on hip-hop or being a purist about anything. Age gives me that luxury. Here’s Vanilla Ice’s song from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze. Honestly, it’s kind of dope.