In preparation for the home entertainment release Warner Bros’ UK distribution arm have released the details of the Blu-Ray and 3D Blu-Ray extras and the cover art for both Blu Ray release formats and the DVD release. And yes, it does come in a green case!

Both the Blu-Ray and 3D Blu-ray will come with a DVD and digital copy of the film. The Blu-Ray extras will include:

• MMM and Picture in Picture Focus Pods
• The Art of Green Lantern
• Weapons Hot: The U.C.A.V. Dog Fight
• Reinventing the Superhero Costume
• Ring Slinging 101
• We Are the Corps
• Acting Under 10 Pounds of Silicone
• Guardians Revealed
• When Parallax Attacks
• The Universe According to Green Lantern
• Ryan Reynolds Becomes the Green Lantern
• Deleted Scenes
• Justice League #1 Digital Comic
• Preview of Green Lantern: The Animated Series

The Blu-Ray release will also include an extra 8 minutes of footage, get back to us with your thoughts on where this extra footage could fit and check out the cover art for all three releases below.

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If you’re anything like me, you’ll have been worried about seeing this film after all the terrible reviews that have been published in the papers and all over internet last week. Well, you can forget all about that because GCB went and saw Green Lantern, and you know what, we only bloody liked it! Yep, I really don’t know what everybody’s problem is, sure the film isn’t perfect but I am very happy to say that Green Lantern is a highly enjoyable, professionally made summer blockbuster, which does not walk all over the well loved character.

Since everyone keeps going on about the film’s negative attributes, let’s start by looking at what’s good about Green Lantern. Director Martin Campbell skillfully handles the balance between the scenes that take place on Earth, and the extra-terrestrial action. This nicely sets up Hal Jordon’s attachment to his home planet, his intense sense of humanity that is essential to his development as a Lantern and gives the audience, who may be fresh to the comic book property, a strong grounding in reality. In the key scenes where Hal is trained by Kilowog and Tomar-Re, the action is nicely cut between Oa and Earth as Hector Hammond slowly becomes infected by alien stuff. This makes the huge amount of information received on Oa a lot easier for an audience to digest and gives a nice break from CGI shots, too much CGI for too long is never a good thing.

Before the film’s release, there was a lot of buzz floating around that the effects may not be completed in time, and the finished film looks cheap and rushed. I really saw no evidence of this, the film had a huge amount of effects and CGI work but it all looked well rendered and convincing, the Lantern’s constructs and Parallax looked particularly cool. The film is well cast, and has a number of actors pop up who aren’t usually seen in this kind of summer blockbuster. It’s pretty obvious that Peter Sarsgaard really delights in playing Hector and has a lot of fun looking as intense and on edge as possible, also Mark Strong looks suitably menacing as Sinestro. And as for Hal, the most important casting in the whole film? I think Ryan Reynolds did a pretty good job, and plays up his experience in comedy to gain a good few laughs.

Sure no film is perfect, and it would only be fair to say that Green Lantern has it’s fair share of niggles. The score was pretty underwhelming, it was crying out for a big scale musical theme to really hit those action scenes home, but composer John Newton Howard relied too often on trashy generic guitar rock, which is just boring. Thomas Kalmaku was completely underwritten and pretty useless; the role had no purpose and just popped up when Hal needed a face to talk to. But these are all small problems, and looking at the film as a whole they’re just niggles.

If I had seen this film when I was 10 years old, I would have really loved it. It has well filmed and interesting action scenes, loads of effects, a wide range of characters and a lead hero who drives cool cars and even cooler planes. I really do hope all the negative reviews don’t put an audience off seeing Green Lantern because without a good box office return we might not see the sequel, and after the post-credits sequence at the end of the film I really want to see more of Hal on the big screen.

Will Pond.

OMG, I love Green Lantern. I love Geoff Johns. I love them coloured mood rings. I love it when Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner get together. I especially like surprise appearances from characters that make me say “scha-WEET” out loud. At first, War of the Green Lanterns left me a bit cold, the first few issues in the various cross over titles seemed to tell the same story, in one Kyle Rayner and John Stewart were beating the hell out of each other, in the other the same was happening between Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan, it wasn’t very compelling. Now, some actual shit has hit the fan and amazingly cool stuff happened. It’s awesome.

Green Lantern #65

I’ve got this old issue of Green Lantern where Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan take off their rings to have a fight, the rings are then stolen by a couple of local hicks… You can pretty much imagine what happens next, but I still find the odd couple routine really funny, and this issue is full of it. It starts off slow, like that episode of Power Rangers (the original guys) where they’re deserted on an island without their watches. It shows how much harder life is for them without their rings, which is nice to see for once, GL’s have it too easy.

Then from marooned and powerless on a deserted planet, to flying face first into a shit storm of possessed corps member, Hal and Guy quickly get to the fight. There’s a couple of bangs and plenty of banter on the way, but the really cool bit comes towards the end, and although it should’ve been spoiled by the main cover of Green Lantern Corps #59, I actually picked up the variant cover, so no spoilers for me. Some might say Geoff Johns is milking the different colours concept a bit, but I was absolutely thrilled by how this issue ended, luckily the next one was at hand.

Green Lantern Corps #59

So, however you feel about the corps rings, you can’t fault how well they’ve been set up. As soon as **** put on the **** ring, I thought to myself “I certainly hope they don’t brush over the fact that **** rings make ***** rings ********, so going into battle with a whole load of ***** Lanterns with that, isn’t a very good idea”. Luckily they did, and it was awesome. Also, the massive character reveal was absolutely epic. Every time they show up, I’m always surprised, but it always makes perfect sense for them to, given the premise.

Hopefully, War of the Green Lanterns will keep up this level of excitement. These issues have proven to me there’s still plenty more material to mine from within the different colour corps, and in my opinion it hasn’t gotten old yet. We’d love to know what you thought, comment below or add us on TWITTER and FACEBOOK for lolz.

Oh yeah! Ganthet kicks some ass too.

Joe Innes.

On-Sale 20/04/2011

Congratulations, you’ve found the hidden message.

The poorly received Variety cover of Ryan Reynolds in full costume last summer, not helping. The first trailer comprised mostly of Ryan Reynolds looking deep in thought (or was it confused?!) and spouting generic one liners, not helping. And finally, Warner Bros public admission the first trailer was not very good and than announcing the second trailer won’t appear in cinemas till just 6 weeks before the film’s release, well I think you get the picture!

In an effort to win over the comic book reading community, Warner Bros premiered a half trailer/grouping together of scenes at Wonder Con last week and then again at Kapow Con last weekend in London (which I was lucky enough to attend). It was focused primarily on the Lantern mythology, and after watching the footage I’m beginning to get quite excited! The casting looks well played (Mark Strong as Sinestro, nice move) and the action and scope well handled. The footage has had a large shift in tone from the first trailer, moving the emphasis away from a cocky Hal and more towards a heavily CGI effects based landscape and a broad range of characters; the scene is set not just for one central character to follow, but for a whole universe to be explored!

The huge amount of CGI effects included in the footage can only be a move by Warner Bros to break rumours recently leaked that the film was seriously behind its post-production schedule and in danger of not being completed on time; Warner Bros
are showing us that the film is on track for the release date and looking good!

So yes, with so many forgettable fantasy and sci-fi films being released recently, Green Lantern will be a hard sell at the cinema, but Warner Bros are up for it! Click HERE to have a look at the footage yourself, and keep checking back for the release of trailer 2.

Will Pond.

It’s not based on the movie, but they’re still getting it out for the June, so there’s a very good chance it’s been rushed. I don’t know why they don’t do an Arkham Asylum and take their time to make a good game, from this I’m worried the power rings will just be used as green guns, I don’t see any decent constructs…

God help any small indie flick being released between April and September, because 2011 is one hell of a year for blockbusters. Not only is there a plethora of comic book movies fighting it out for our cash, but sequels to Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers are getting major 3D releases. The mega-plex is a sodding battlefield.

Marvel Studios have already made a move to dominate the summer by scheduling their two major releases 3 months apart, Thor in late April and Captain America: The First Avenger in July. This closely mimics their successful release strategy for Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk in 2008, and takes advantage of an early summer release slot.

20th Century Fox will just make it in between Marvel’s goal posts releasing X-Men: First Class in early June before Warner Bros put out The Green Lantern later in the month, hopefully getting a share of the 3D cinema screens. Since most cinema chains have only installed a limited number of them in each multiplex, films must make enough money to keep being shown, or fear being chucked out for the next release. This is something X Men: First Class could do very well from.

We’ll also be looking forward to Cowboys and Aliens, which although made by major players, has been made to look like an outsider due to all the other stuff! Based on the graphic novel of the same name, Harrison Ford is a cowboy going up against some aliens… ACE.invisible

So… expect to see every bus stop, newspaper and tube station covered in posters and marketing guff at least 4-6 weeks before a films release date, if not before.  Most studios will be heading into 2011 cursing a lack of planning and proper release strategy, and as audience members we can only hope that the quality of the actual films won’t be affected. 2011 is going to be mega year for blockbuster films, and we can only wait for Mr. Branagh to kick it all off on April 29th.

Will Pond.

Some of the guys working on it did Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Which is nice.