‘Aquaman’ And ‘Shazam’ Both Learned From The Mistakes Of ‘Green Lantern’

I wrote back in August of 2018 arguing that Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern retroactively arguably belonged in the DC Films universe. It had the visual richness of Man of Steel along with the paint-by-numbers origin story tropes of Wonder Woman. While Peter Sarsgaard brought surprising nuance and depth to his baddie, the film still faltered in terms of merging the fantastical elements with Campbell’s “adults dealing with real world conflicts like adults” sensibilities. It tried too hard to make Ryan Reynolds’ Hal Jordan into a stereotypical “cocky cool jerk who’s actually okay” and absolutely dropped the ball in terms of a spectacular climactic action sequence. Today, the infamous 2011 flop is even more of a “rough draft” in terms of eventual DC Films triumphs. Green Lantern died so that DC Films, especially Aquaman and Shazam, could live.

In Ryan Reynolds’ Hal Jordan, we get DC’s first attempt at a “super cool hero,” a Han Solo wannabee in a film determined to make a famously dorky superhero fit for general moviegoers and/or stereotypical jocks. That’s what Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. pulled off with Iron Man three years prior. Generally speaking, a lot of went wrong (or was ill-received) about the post-Dark Knight/pre-Wonder Woman DC flicks were as much about trying to replicate the success of Iron Man as The Dark Knight. But Iron Man didn’t just work because Tony Stark was a male wish-fulfillment fantasy made cinematic real, he existed in a sleek, cold and tech-heavy, political actioner that just happened to be based on a superhero comic book. Iron Man was an “adult-safe” Paramount action movie that happened to be a Marvel flick.

Through little fault of Reynolds’ perfectly okay performance, Hal Jordan wasn’t just a “too cool for school” dude who ends up being a cosmic space cop. He was shown failing at his job (by crashing his co-pilot’s plane), using his magic ring to seriously injure three men who were upset that his hot-dogging got them fired and arbitrarily quitting his Green Lantern training. We’re supposed to root for him to embrace his acquired powers and win over a childhood sweetheart/boss (Blake Lively). There’s a manifest destiny thread, especially when contrasted with Peter Sarsgaard’s Hector Hammond, a reclusive professor who gets exposed to the antithesis of the Lantern’s powers and slowly becomes a murderous baddie. Sans much in the way of deconstruction, the jock gets to be the hero (while getting the girl), as the nerd becomes the villain.

Aquaman had actually been varying degrees of “badass” at least since Peter David’s 1994 comic arc. Nonetheless, Wan’s origin story flick had to make Jason Momoa’s Arthur “cool” to legions of general audience members who still knew him from the Super Friends days without making the Green Lantern mistake of making him a jerk. He’s a tattooed muscleman who kicks ass, has tattoos, and drinks beer, and he also has a loving relationship with his father (Temuera Morrison), happily takes selfies with folks at bar, has a good-natured courtship with Mera (Amber Heard) and pulls off the “I’m scared I’m not good enough for this challenge” arc that, unlike Green Lantern (or even Wonder Woman or Thor), made its hero into an underdog. It helped that Momoa is Polynesian while Patrick Wilson’s Orm looks like an Aryan Nations recruitment poster.

Icky subtext aside, one thing Green Lantern did right was in making the film’s prime baddie almost a second lead and contrasting his struggles with our hero’s journey. Sarsgaard is pretty great here, and his transformation from a socially awkward and underappreciated college professor into a big-headed, super-powered sociopath plays out like a tragic horror movie. Hammond eventually embraces his cruel destiny even while appalled that the same crashed alien spacecraft that turned his childhood acquaintance into a superhero is turning him into a monster. Like the main baddie in David F. Sandberg’s Shazam (Mark Strong, who played Sinestro in Green Lantern), Hammond is loathed by his father (Tim Robbins, ironic since it plays like a loose remake of Howard the Duck) and eventually uses his newfound powers to murder his disapproving patriarch.

In Green Lantern, Hammond’s displeased dad is contrasted with Jordan’s trauma of watching his father die in an aerial accident. In Shazam, Dr. Thaddeus Sivana’s family issues are contrasted with the struggles of Billy Batson (Asher Angel), a troubled foster kid whose mother seemingly abandoned him at an amusement park years prior. While Green Lantern was an attempt to mimic superhero daddy issues of Batman Begins and Iron Man, DC Films eventually differentiated itself by focusing on mommy issues. Arthur is riddled with guilt over the presumed death of his mother (Nicole Kidman), who was allegedly executed for having an affair with a human. Billy is haunted by his “lost” mother. Henry Cavill’s Superman, Ben Affleck’s Batman, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and even Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker are comparatively more concerned with the mom than the dad.

If Aquaman works as an improvement on Green Lantern’s “reluctant hero doesn’t think he’s good enough and is scared of failing” arc and Shazam! carts over Green Lantern’s “main villain with a disapproving father is cursed by the same trick of destiny that makes the protagonist into a hero” arc, they both make a point to correct one of Green Lantern’s key mistakes. Green Lantern failed to pay off the notion of thousands of Green Lanterns united in battle, offering instead a quick “Hal battles Parallax for a few minutes on Earth, then a minute or two in space” showdown. Even Justice League, perhaps thinking that folks were weary of third-act mega-showdowns amid crowded populaces, offered a truncated and frankly underwhelming “Superman returns and helps the heroes defeat Steppenwolf” battle amid a deserted Russian town.

While Green Lantern barely offers a third-act climax, Aquaman and Shazam both bring the thunder in their finales. The Wan flick offers Arthur (wearing his classic orange comic book costume no less) commanding a giant sea monster into an already-in-progress underwater war and using his “I can talk to the animals” power to turn the oceanic creatures against the humanoid bad guys. Sandberg’s Shazam! is a $90 million flick, but it still ends with a protracted battle at a local fair with Shazam (Zachary Levi) doing batter with Dr. Sivana and his monsters while Billy’s foster siblings do what they can to help. No spoilers, but the climax eventually springs the best superhero movie plot twist (especially for ignoramuses like me who haven’t read the source material) since the Mandarin was “unmasked” in Iron Man 3.

Even as someone who likes Green Lantern more than most people (I’m a sucker for Martin Campbell movies), it is a fascinating artifact of how an early attempt at creating a non-Batman/Superman DC flick went awry. Their later triumphs stole what worked (the villain arc and how it contrasts to the hero’s journey), improved what didn’t (making sure the badass hero wasn’t an entitled jerk) and delivered the third-act bonanza in a way the earlier DC origin story movie (and, oddly, the mega-budget DC Films team-up movie) had not. I still think Green Lantern belongs in the DC Films mythology, both because it fits visually and because it’ll save us from another Green Lantern origin story. As badly as it bombed ($216 million worldwide), it provided a glorified rough draft two of DC Films’ biggest successes.