Thursday, July 22, 2004

I've noticed a lot of fine folks (well, not a lot, but there have been a few) posting on the proposed (threatened) Green Lantern flick that's set to star Jack Black in the title role, and the prevailing attitude seems to be "Sure! Why not! What the hell! Green Lantern's ridiculous, and Jack's cool, so why not embrace the inherent cheesiness of the Lantern Corps and go with it?".

Uh...no. C'mon. Aren't Catwoman, Constantine, and of course those timeless classics Batman and Robin and Superman III enough to satisfy that need to see the super hero ridiculed and made fun of?

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm no GL fan, never really have been, although I liked those old O'Neil/Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrows, and enjoyed the occasional Broome/Kane GL's back in my childhood. But I've never really been all that enamored of the character, be it Jordan, Rayner, Stewart, Kilowog, or G'nort even. So I don't have any real vested interest in how he's portrayed, unlike some. I also like Black, although I wish his film role choices were better sometimes. He's great in Tenacious D, was great in High Fidelity, and I'm sure is wonderful in School of Rock (haven't seen it yet). But c'mon. He's more Pieface than GL, and if you just can't get enough of the Starsky and Hutch (2004) school of filmmaking, then there are plenty of places to get your jollies than to see poor GL made into a joke.

If this is the best way they can come up with to bring the Lantern onto the silver screen...then I just wish they'd decline. Forget it. Hopefully, the aforementioned Catwoman and Constantine flicks will bomb so spectacularly that they'll make every producer in Hollywood abandon the comics ship. Of course, I won't hold my breath. But really. Jack Black. Green Lantern. Do you really hate genre comics so much that you would want to see this perpretated in the cinemas of the world? Not me, buddy.

No comments: