Green Lantern

I kinda liked Green Lantern.  It struck me as goofy fun.  All the goofy fun in the world, however, can’t mask its profound distastefulness.

Here’s the deal: Ryan Reynolds plays Hal Jordan, a test pilot with deep-seated insecurities who gets selected to be Flashlight Guy, er, Green Lantern, a space-cop who can use Lantern Power to focus his will into stuff like really big machine guns.  After bilging out of Space Cop Academy, he returns to Earth.  Once home, he’s confronted with Capital E Eeevil, overcomes his insecurities, and saves the day.  On the face of it, this makes for a good time at the movies.  My kindergartner enjoyed it, and I rocked along relatively happily.

But I can’t see how any self-respecting nerd can support Green Lantern.  As played by Ryan Reynolds, Hal Jordan is that jock you probably hated in high school.  He’s good looking and in great shape and has a ridiculously hot girlfriend whom he neglects.  As if that weren’t enough, he has an awesome car, the ability to lose his job without freaking out, and Space Cop powers.  But that’s not so bad.  Here’s the killer: his nemesis is you.  His nemesis is Chess Club Guy, the nerd with the crush on Ridiculously Hot Girl.

{Aside: it just kills me that it always comes back to Ridiculously Hot Girl.  By whining about the fact that he’s invisible to Ridiculously Hot Girl, Chess Club Guy marginalizes all the Chess Club Girls.  In a sense, he’s marginalizing his own analogue and, thus, himself.  I hear you, Evolutionary Scientist Guy: Ridiculous Hotness often comes down to symmetry of feature, perfect averageness, and physical fitness, thus suggesting a good reproductive choice.  Nevertheless, the self-loathing inherent in the envy of the one whom Ridiculously Hot Girl finds attractive strikes me as both unjust and uncomfortable.}

So, what are we supposed to do?  Root for the Alpha Beta over the Tri Lamb?  Cheer Ryan Reynolds because he finally gets in touch with his inner Ted McGinley? Not going to happen.  The best we can do is quiet our misgivings and enjoy the pretty pictures.

And plot our revenge.  Mu ha ha.

Casino Royale

CASINO ROYALE is the first James Bond film I’ve liked since Timothy Dalton left the franchise. But something about it bothered the hell out of me.

Don’t get me wrong: Pierce Brosnan was a fine Bond, keeping the character just this side of self-parody while clearly having fun with the role. Problem is, he was a fine Bond in terrible movies. Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist? Invisible cars? “He’s the best there is”? Give me a break – he’s one of nine. Sure, I saw every one of his movies, but I walked out disappointed every time. It got to the point where, as with Star Wars, I was ready to leave the franchise behind. Daniel Craig, on the other hand, got lucky with his first film in the role. CASINO ROYAL’s stunts looked practical, its villains seemed plausible, and its story seemed reasonable. This gave the film a sense of urgency that the others lacked, and it helped to keep me entertained throughout its running time.

But here’s the thing that bothered me: I finally realized that the Bond franchise is basically wealth porn. It dangles before us, bright and shiny, a world of fabulously wealthy people living fabulous lives in fabulous locations. Even its working stiffs, its spies and accountants, get to live fabulously on their governments’ tabs (he writes, looking around his serviceable but decidedly non-fabulous government-funded hotel room). It equates wealth with conspicuous consumption, two things that have proven, time and again, to be fundamentally incompatible, and it does so while burying us in advertising for watches, cars, beverages, hotels, and nearly every other consumable a profligate spender might reasonably purchase. I have a problem with wealth porn, because it encourages the kind of irresponsible behavior that leads to people purchasing vehicles whose value outweighs that of their retirement plans, all for a taste of what they perceive to be “the good life.” Why did this particular installment trigger that connection? I suspect that it was the sight of James Bond driving to a posh location alone in a Ford, then driving away in a fabulous sports car, beautiful woman at his side, because he had basically won the lottery. My first reaction? “Frack! I need to win the lottery!” (Legal Disclaimer: So I can put the beautiful woman to whom I’m married in a fabulous sports car. Let’s make that perfectly clear.) My second reaction? “What am I thinking? I need to make another contribution to my Roth IRA!”

So while I enjoyed the movie, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was selling me an attractive lie. It’s the blemish on an otherwise entirely enjoyable film. I wouldn’t let a little wealth porn turn you away.