Watch the soulless cliches come flying at you in 3D sludge-o-vision, thick and not particularly fast, and you'll be able to work out why.
Superhero Hal Jordan should be a natural for cinema.
Unlike those other helpers of humanity Spider-man and Batman, Hal (played by Ryan Reynolds for maximum hunkiness and minimum nuance) isn't earthbound.
His coolest aspect is that he's able to fly like a human rocket to far-off planets, including Oa, which as you may or may not know is the centre of inter-galactic civilisation, and run by wizened elders (Oa-A-Ps?) who live on astonishingly tall plinths and are answerable to no one, just like the executive committee of FIFA.
Hal Jordan's character development is that he changes from being the kind of cocky pilot Tom Cruise played in Top Gun into a galactic cop, doggedly dedicated to preserving peace, order and the right of wizened oligarchs to exercise absolute power.
Democratic ideals never enter his head, which seems odd for a modern American, but I surmise from Hal's unfurrowed brow and honed abs that his interest in current affairs may not extend beyond the sports pages.
A miraculous ring seeks Hal out for his courage, if not his political sophistication, and gives him extraordinary flying and fighting abilities.
Coincidentally, these superpowers impair his hitherto rampant libido, turning him from a serial lothario with the morals of a Premier League footballer into a one-woman guy.
I'm not sure why, especially as his paramour since childhood, test pilot turned aerospace business ace Carol Ferris, is played by Blake Lively in a way that suggests her surname is ironic.
Perhaps this usually reliable actress is aware that in later episodes of the comic strip she becomes a villainess, but in this movie she needed several kilowatts more warmth to make her a desirable heroine.
The Green Lantern universe is run not on solar or nuclear energy, but on willpower, which is colour-coded green and always good.
This struck me as too close for comfort to The Force in the Star Wars movies, but maybe George Lucas stole the idea from DC Comics, rather than vice versa.
The opposite to willpower is not as you might deduce, lack of willpower, but fear, which is conveniently colour-coded yellow.
In this black-and-white (or rather green-and-yellow) moral universe, fear is invariably bad, although I would have thought certain kinds of fear — such as the fear of absolute power wielded by ancient oligarchs — might have its uses.
Chief intergalactic bad guy is Parallax, who looks like a cross between a volcanic ash-cloud and a giant octopus, and behaves like a famished John Prescott.
His plan is to gobble up the earth, which will — for reasons that remain unexplained — give him the ability to consume the rest of the galaxy for dessert.
The only warriors preventing the universe from becoming one gigantic petit four are 3,600 Green Lanterns, under the leadership of Sinestro (Mark Strong with mauve skin, Spock ears and a David Niven moustache), who mistrusts his new human recruit Hal and looks as if he might be partial to a bit of ruling by fear himself.
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