Over the weekend, Green Lantern officially grabbed the top box-office prize with an estimated $52.7 million, which is slightly amazing considering that the trailer looked like an enormous mountain of shiny green crap. Despite this supposed coup, however, $52.7 million certainly doesn’t make a dent in the film’s $200 million production budget (with at least another $100 million blown on publicity on top of that). Of course, all of the fanboys flocked to see the movie on opening weekend, so I seriously doubt that the movie will have “legs” in the coming weeks. Certainly, there will be no substabtial measure of positive word-of-mouth in manner of X-Men: First Class (including but not limited to Kaiser’s official take) to keep the money rolling in for the weeks to come. Interestingly enough, many prominent critics have chosen to pepper their Green Lantern reviews with some choice words on Blake Lively’s (for lack of a better word) performance:

“[Carol] is played by Blake Lively, and some in the audience might be heard to observe, ‘What is she, like, 15?’ And frankly she is also not too terribly convincing these days playing anything other than somebody who doesn’t know how to frame a cellphone picture. What. Ever. As I think they said on that TV show she used to be on.”

[From MSN]

“Blake Lively wins this year’s Kristin Stewart Award for Indistinct Diction”

[From Wall Street Journal]

“…Carol Ferris, who would be an amazing character as depicted by Blake Lively if only she weren’t allowed to speak. Ever.“

[From Pajiba]

“As appealing as Blake Lively might be in the right role, she’s miscast here and it shows in her wooden, unconvincing delivery. A life-size Barbie Doll would emote better.”

[From James Berardinelli]

“Blake Lively is decorative — no more”

[From Rolling Stone]

Ouch. Not that those meanies will affect Lively’s own plan for A-list stardom, for she’s still got Leo, right? Meanwhile, the J.J. Abrams’-produced Super 8 held on to second place by adding another $21.3 million for a two-week total of $72.8 million. If nothing else, this will give a substantial boost to Elle Fanning’s future marketability.

In third place, the debuting Mr. Popper’s Penguins landed with a decent but not stellar $18.2 million, which is about what analysts expected from this Jim Carrey-starring kiddie flick. In my review, I stated that this was a much better than expected movie, but (admittedly) that bar was set pretty low in the beginning.

In its third weekend, X-Men: First Class nabbed another $11.5 million for a domestic total of $119.9 million (and $282 million worldwide), which easily takes care of the pic’s $150 million budget and virtually guarantees that we’ll probably get another installment of Fassbender/McAvoy deliciousness.

And somehow, The Hangover Part II added another $9.6 million for an astonishing four-week domestic total of $232.7 million (and $488.7 million worldwide). Exactly how did this happen?

Movie stills courtesy of AllMoviePhoto