GREEN LANTERN
A thrilling superhero adventure where courage defeats fear—for adults only.
Should You Watch It?
GREEN LANTERN is an excellent, riveting superhero movie with humor, emotion, spectacular 3-D effects, and a morally uplifting conclusion. Its central lesson is valuable: moral courage can overcome fear, lust, irresponsibility, and evil. Ryan Reynolds gives a sympathetic, credible performance as Hal Jordan, and the movie ultimately celebrates responsibility, sacrifice, and protecting innocent people.
The cost is significant. The film includes strong profanities, other obscenities, light innuendo, intense action violence, brief upper male nudity, and nominalistic elements in which willpower conjures things out of nothing. Those concerns are not fully erased by the film’s redemptive message.
If you are an adult able to exercise discernment about those elements, GREEN LANTERN offers real entertainment and worthwhile moral themes. For children and young teens, choose another film. WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY is the practical answer.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESHal Jordan is a hotshot test pilot and irresponsible playboy who fears he cannot measure up. After an alien peacekeeper dies on Earth, a powerful ring chooses Hal as the newest member of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic cadre devoted to peace, order, and justice.
Hal receives instruction in the Corps’ powers and responsibilities while an ancient enemy threatens Earth. Before he can face that evil, Hal must decide whether fear will control him—or whether courage will call him to stand and protect others.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means this is an excellent, highly entertaining film. GREEN LANTERN is incredibly exciting and lots of fun, with truly amazing and visually stunning 3-D special effects and photography.
Ryan Reynolds is a very sympathetic, credible Green Lantern. His interactions with the other actors and characters are entertaining and ultimately inspiring. The movie also combines humor and emotion with a strong moral premise, building toward a redemptive conclusion that extols responsibility and the courage to stand against evil.
The Worldview
GREEN LANTERN presents moral courage as stronger than fear and lust. Hal begins as an irresponsible pilot and playboy, but becoming a Green Lantern moves him toward responsibility, sacrifice, and the protection of others. The film also includes Christian, redemptive elements involving forgiveness, apology, being chosen by a higher power, and sacrificing oneself to save the human race.
The film’s central weakness is its nominalistic view of the Green Lantern power. The rings allow their users to conjure weapons, powers, and devices from imagination. The movie rightly rejects the corrupting power of fear, but it does not fully resolve the problem of presenting willpower as a supernatural force. Still, it ultimately says that Hal’s moral courage—not merely his ring or willpower—enables him to defeat evil.
The review connects this courage to resisting the evils of terrorism and the killing of unborn children rather than surrendering to appeasement or inaction. The film’s lesson aligns with the biblical call to reject evil and live for what is good, while its magical framework departs from a biblical understanding of power and grace. Scripture says, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people” and teaching believers “to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions” (Titus 2:11–12).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Strong moral worldview and premise, sometimes implied, about an irresponsible pilot and playboy who sometimes curses but learns how to be more responsible and moral when he’s chosen to join an ancient intergalactic corps of alien peacekeepers who keep peace, order and justice and fight against evil, with moral themes of becoming responsible, taking a moral oath to fight evil always and everywhere, protecting people from mean villains lusting after power and/or trying to kill people and consume their souls, and courage to fight evil conquers fear and lust, spoiled by some strong pagan but mixed nominalistic elements where peacekeepers can use willpower to conjure up things out of nothing to help them fight evil though in the end courage (especially the courage to fight evil and conquer fear and lust) proves to be the stronger power, plus some Christian, redemptive elements regarding forgiveness and apologizing to those one has wronged in addition to being chosen by a higher power and making a sacrifice to save the human race, peacekeepers are strongly patriotic, and strong pro-capitalist elements where hero’s love interest works for her father’s company, a military contractor; 12 mostly light obscenities (mostly “h” words but a few “s” words), three strong profanities and four light exclamatory profanities; strong, intense action violence includes evil being kills three good peacekeepers and appears to consume their souls, spaceship crashes, alien dies, pilot almost dies, flashback where pilot sees his father’s plane explode when he’s a boy, hero’s training involves fighting and being flung against objects and building structures, scientist gets infected by evil alien power when he autopsies body of dead alien, villain flings people about and tries to kill them, villain tries to make helicopter crash and kill his senator father while also killing innocent bystanders, helicopter crashes into objects as people flee in terror, villain tries to infect female with evil alien power from his blood through a hypodermic needle, hero fights main villain as he tries to destroy earth and keeps killing innocent bystanders and apparently consumes their souls, and some images of skeletons; light sexual content includes implied fornication when protagonist wakes up next to minor female character, light double entendres in discussion about relationship between hero and his love interest, brief discussion implies hero and love interest slept together in the past, and a passionate kiss occurs; brief upper male nudity; brief alcohol use; no smoking or drugs; and, irresponsibility but rebuked, hero tricks one villain by not revealing the truth in one scene, and ancient “immortal” beings called “Guardians of the Universe” seem like gods but movie later reveals they are flawed.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Hal begins as an irresponsible person but grows toward courage and responsibility. What does real repentance and changed conduct look like in your own life?
Titus 2:11–14 · 2 Corinthians 5:17The film contrasts moral courage with fear and lust. When are you tempted to give in to fear instead of doing what is right?
Joshua 1:9 · 2 Timothy 1:7The Green Lantern Corps considers using the power of fear to defeat evil. Why can evil means corrupt a supposedly good goal?
Romans 12:21 · 1 Thessalonians 5:21–22Hal ultimately protects innocent people and accepts personal sacrifice. How does Jesus’ sacrifice give us the clearest example of courageous love?
John 15:13 · Philippians 2:3–8The Final Word
GREEN LANTERN is thrilling, funny, emotional, and visually stunning, with valuable lessons about responsibility and moral courage. Its foul language, intense violence, sexual content, nudity, and magical-thinking elements require strong discernment. For discerning adults, it is WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY. For younger viewers, consider.
