10 Troubling Messages From Superhero Movies

5. Sometimes The Douchebag Gets To Be The Hero - Green Lantern

Green Lantern Some might say that the alcoholic, former-womaniser, cocky a**hole Tony Stark is a bit of a douchebag, but hey, he's as charming as James Bond and spends his days flying around in awesome weaponised robotic suits, so he can get away with it. Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), however, cannot, and it's not for Reynolds' lack of trying, but because the hatchet-job script seems Hell-bent on making the guy come across as a thoroughly unlikeable asshat. Jordan isn't unlike Tony Stark in the first Iron Man - he's a womaniser and has some evident daddy issues - but the problem is that this film lets him get away with it, whereas Iron Man mocked and derided Stark for his behaviour, and by Iron Man 2, we had seen some sort of evolution in his character. Green Lantern, however, simply accepted this, and it left something of an unsavoury taste, that such a douchey guy could become this all-powerful demi-God essentially.
 
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Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.