It hasn’t been easy finding a decent D.C. Comics live-action movie without the words “Bat” or “Knight” in the title nowadays. Luckily for fans of the veteran publishing house, the company has found other ways to bring their famous characters to life – direct-to-DVD animation. The latest is “Green Lantern: First Flight”, directed by Lauren Montgomery, who is no stranger to the D.C. verse, having previously helmed the company’s animated movies for Wonder Woman and Superman. There are good reasons to go this route while the live-action movie versions gestate in studio development hell: the animated form allows filmmakers to remain loyal to important facets of the source comic books without having to concern themselves with budget. In the case of the mostly space-set “Green Lantern: First Flight”, that’s a very good thing. Everything else, unfortunately, not so much.
“Green Lantern: First Flight” wastes no time introducing us to Hal Jordan (voiced by Law and Order: SVU’s Christopher Meloni), a test pilot who is, in the film’s first few minutes, whisked away by the ring of a dying alien Green Lantern. With his dying breath, the alien hands over his power and that of the Green Lantern ring to Jordan. Before we can even breathe, members of the Green Lantern Corp. arrive on Earth and with some heavy douche bag attitude, snatch Jordan off to see the Guardians –small, blue-skinned aliens that created the rings in the first place. The Guardians are head of an Interstellar space police force, the Green Lantern Corp., with each Lantern assigned one part of the galaxy to patrol. The rings, we learn, are uber powerful, but they do have one weakness: the color yellow.
Since humans have something of a bad reputation in the rest of the galaxy (much to Jordan’s chagrin), the Guardians are not pleased that Jordan has been chosen by the ring to be its new host. But before they can strip him off his newfound powers, veteran Green Lantern Sinestro (Victor Garber of Alias) steps in to offer to teach the rookie. The Guardians accept, but as Jordan go about learning the trades of his interstellar space beat, he begins to realize that ol Sinestro is not all too pleased with the Guardians. In fact, the cruel, and some would say, sinister space cop has his own ideas about how to run the galaxy, and they don’t necessarily include the Guardians. (Shoulda seen it coming, right? I mean, his name is Sinestro, after all, and he does have an evil looking mustache, for crying out loud.)
To be honest with you, I’ve never been a very big fan of Green Lantern, and I usually find his use of the ring’s powers to be more than a little silly. For instance, the ring is so powerful that it can do pretty much anything its wearer can imagine, including slicing through metal, pummeling someone into submission with a blast, and create force fields that can shield against huge explosions. But what does Green Lantern end up using it for? Making giant hammers and hitting people with it. There’s a lot of that in “First Flight”, and you’re liable to giggle at all the other wacky constructs that Hal Jordan and his fellow Green Lantern Corp. come up with. Why not just, you know, blast things to smithereens, or to be more humane, knock them out? I don’t know, I guess that’s one of the charms of the character that I never “got”.
If you’re a comic book fan, “Green Lantern” has a lot going for it. It’s definitely very intergalactic in scope, though anyone who isn’t familiar with the character will probably feel as if they came into the film missing a good 30 or so minutes of character set-up. The thing is, you didn’t miss anything, because there wasn’t any set-up. In no time at all, Jordan is in space and fighting alien bad guys as a Green Lantern. You never really get the sense that he’s learning on the job, or is even slightly wowed by the fact that, well, he’s flying among tentacle aliens. You would think Hal Jordan grew up in space and was just visiting Earth when the ring found him. Either that, or he’s one nonchalant dude.
Like a lot of direct-to-DVD animated movies from D.C. and their rival Marvel, “Green Lantern” is hampered by a short running time, clocking in at just barely over seventy minutes. But a short running time needn’t be a hindrance. D.C. proved last year with “Justice League: The New Frontier” (which, incidentally, also co-starred Green Lantern) that you could have a short movie and still fill in a lot of the character’s background, all the while setting up the main bad guy plot. In fact, we learned more about Hal Jordan in the brief time he spent in “New Frontier” than we ever do here. “First Flight’s” script, by veteran D.C. writer Alan Burnett, is so anxious to get to the alien action stuff that it never allows itself to breathe, much less offer up a proper origin story for its main character.
On the plus side, the voice work in “Green Lantern: First Flight” is solid. Christopher Meloni sounds the part, though for some reason I always thought the comic book Hal Jordan wasn’t prone to wise-cracking? That’s not the case here at all. Victor Garber is slick as the scheming Sinestro, and Michael Madsen makes for one gruff, but oddly loveable Kilowog. Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer voices the empathetic Boodikka, while That 70’s Show veteran Kurtwood Smith is bad guy Kanjar Ro, probably the movie’s one miscast. It’s hard not to picture Smith when you hear that voice. Every time he’s on screen, I kept waiting for his character to add, “Don’t make me put my foot up your ass.” But oddly, he never did. Shame, really.
“Green Lantern: First Flight” makes for a poor introduction to Hal Jordan, the character, but it’s a pretty good animated action movie. The animation is mostly flawless, though I did see a couple of scenes where they forgot to color in Sinestro’s red skin. But if the movie’s target audiences are comic book fans who already know the origin of Hal Jordan and don’t need it retold, or young kids who want to see a green guy fly around fighting tentacle aliens, then “First Flight” fills those needs. If you don’t fit in either of those categories, but is willing to take a stab at an animated superhero movie, I would recommend D.C.’s “Justice League: New Frontier” instead. It’s got Green Lantern in it, too, and on the plus side, you actually learn something about the guy making those wacky giant hammers to hit people with.
“Green Lantern: First Flight” lands on DVD July 28th, 2009.
Lauren Montgomery (director) / Alan Burnett (screenplay)
CAST: Christopher Meloni … Hal Jordan / Green Lantern (voice)
Victor Garber … Sinestro (voice)
Tricia Helfer … Boodikka (voice)
Michael Madsen … Kilowog (voice)
John Larroquette … Tomar Re (voice)
Kurtwood Smith … Kanjar Ro (voice)
I like long walks on the beach, puppies, and Kevin Costner post-apocalyptic movies. You can reach me at nix (at) scificool.com. Also, check out my other ridiculously ill-informed opinions and reviews over at 
Must agree with the lack of character development esp. with Hal's introduction, as a person and to the new worlds. The universe also felt strangely empty.
i think the reason Jordam seemed so comfortable and knowledgable in an alien enviroment was the “Ring”. The Ring passes knowledge to its wearer, knowledge that was “topped up” again when Sinestro forces him to connect with the Lantern.
Im not as familiar with the Green Lantern as I am other comic book characters but I think you were given about as much “origin” info in the film as you were in the comics.
Hal Jordan tends to make familiar items with his ring hence the golf club, baseball bat etc. which just points to Hal's Earthly origins more than anything else.
All the places you are referring to Sinestro 'not being colored in' were on purpose as it was different ambient lighting in those scenes. If you are going to review products you should be more professional and pay close attention. You are making this sound like a flawed product when the lapse was in your attention. That is not fair to all the people who worked hard on this product.
This in my opinion, is one of the best superhero cartoons ever made. I thought the fact that they established his origin before the opening credits and got right to an adventure story was brilliant. To each his own I guess.
A critical part of what makes Hal Jordan one of the most powerful Green Lanterns in the galaxy is his ingenuity and creativity in using the ring, as it is one's willpower and this essence that allows one to use it. The least powerful Green Lanterns are the ones that simply 'blast things to smithereens' with their rings.
At least that is what I remember from occasionally standing at the comic store shelf and browsing through the Green Lantern Corp comics 20+ years ago.
Now you're just being silly. It was bad (and sad) enough your big issue was that I pointed out the colorists FUBAR some of Sinestro's scenes in regards to his red color (note: I said some scenes, not “every scene in the history of cinema”), but then you went and called it the best superhero cartoon you had ever seen. Clearly, you're deluded. Also, if your idea of Jordan being the most powerful Green Lantern is because he can make silly giant hammers to hit people with, you're beyond logical. While your precious Hal Jordan is coming up with his big fist and swinging it to hit me, I could just shoot him to death with a simple blast which wouldn't require creating something and THEN making the effort to swing it.
Bruce Timm and Lauren Montgomery mentioned before that the reason they didn't spend much time on Hal Jordan's origin story was because they had already done that in Justice League: The New Frontier, as you mentioned. They said they didn't want to repeat themselves and if you read other reviews online, you'll see some people appreciated that. A small number of people, like you, felt the movie should have stood on its own. And you're not wrong. But I think the producers are aiming this to a specific audience….which is odd considering you'd want to make as much a profit as possible.
It is funny that you mention how “silly” you found Hal's energy constructs were. In the commentary for the Justice League animated series, which featured the character John Stewart as Green Lantern, Bruce Timm and the other producers mentioned that they intentionally refrained from having their Green Lantern use “silly” constructs when battling aliens/mutants/villain of the week. They said that they wanted to distant themselves from the previous Saturday morning children's show adaptation of Justice League, Superfriends. They also mentioned that having John Stewart's constructs and energy blasts being practical in appearance (no guns or rocket launchers) reflected the character's no-nonsense personality. However, the appeal of the other Green Lanterns making such frivolous and superfluous constructs with their rings is to show off the creativity and imagination of those characters. Are they silly? Yes, but so is the idea of random no-name red shirts dying in Star Trek to show how serious the situation is for the main characters….and yet, they're fun. If those ridiculous things don't put a smile on your face, you're taking things way too seriously when you probably shouldn't be. Sometimes you have to step back and realize what you are watching. A comic book movie that was never meant to be dark like Batman.
Ah, but see, you're saying *I* am taking Hal Jordan's use of silly constructs too seriously, which I did not. I merely mentioned that I found them silly, that's all. The other fellow decided to defend the use of giant green hammers by saying it means Hal Jordan is powerful and insinuated that I did not “get” that making giant hammers and hitting people with it was an example of Jordan's “great power”. Which, again, is just silly.
Though I eagerly anticipated this animated film for months I must admit I was not that excited about it as it unfolded once I got it. This was unfortunately you’re a-typical comic story line changed to fit a movie format. The beginning was intriguing until I saw the Guardians and the way Sinestro was introduced. The blue guys talked liked a bunch of cackling politicians in a senate debate (with emotion mind you!). Also their combined powers should have been able to at least keep Sinestro pretty busy covering his ass while the corps tried to fight the problem. The Quadians where not portrayed as they should have been. Sinestro never had a mobile main power battery (at least in the time line I recall) and not the uniform of the Sinestro Corps (that was a slight inconsistently). Also most of all Sinestro killed! Despite his will of contempt and desire to be his own master and user of the yellow power he was after he should not have been able to kill with the green power ring. This may have delighted new fans and the younger crowd. But being a hard core GL fan of two generations I fear for the live action movie. I can forgive animated programs and movies. But when it comes time for Hal to be seen on the big screen I am concerned it may be in jeopardy. This is a very complex story line with stories with in stories. Maybe the Warner Poozers should leave well enough alone. Just my view.