As with most super hero series, if there's a second one, odds are it will be better than the first. As I've always said in the past, the second movie in a super hero series is usually the best because they already got all the exposition of the origin out of the way in the first film.
Yeah. Although I will say, I thought they did more exposition than I would prefer, but my wife thought the mythology was awesome and wanted more information and history of the GL's so maybe they made the right choice.
Overall my biggest complaint was we needed less time on earth and more time in space with the GL's. The film was to much Iron Man and not enough Star Wars. It was still an effective origin story though so... we are looking forward to the next one.
As for some of the nit picks people are having... I've been reading GL for over 20 years. I could have nit-picked the SHIT out of that movie. Why didn't I? Why did I just enjoy it instead? I don't know. Maybe in my old age I'm just not caring as much about things that don't make a big difference when they translate something. So I don't disagree with the things people who didn't like the changes from the comic but... I guess they just didn't matter to me as much.
Ebert gave it 2.5, I would have given it 3 stars but I understand why he did. Not only are the critics in superhero movie fatigue but it's a tough mythology to sell people on. He nails that though and the silliness of it but embraced the fact that they embraced that and didn't shy away from it but gave it their all.
One thing I read was the SPFX team fell behind and they cut up the job to 3 other companies.
That happens on most big vfx films (Also, if I may nerd out: "special" Effects are practical. ie, real effects, what you and I are talking about are VFX,Visual Effects meaning CGI and compositing, etc).