Review of Green Lantern: First Flight (2009) by Karly A — 03 Aug 2009

Both Marvel and DC have had many straight to DVD animated movies over the past couple of years. I would say that I am more of a Marvel fan myself as far as comics go, but I've found that the DC animated movies tend to be better than the Marvel ones. Earlier this year there was the Wonder Woman movie, that took a character I didn't care for and made a movie that I absolutely loved. Green Lantern is another character that I really don't care much for, and his animated film turns out to be another film from DC's animation studio that I really enjoyed.

Green Lantern - First Flight does a great job at balancing the task of having to show the origin of Green Lantern and contain an action-packed and intelligent story for this character to exist in. I was surprised that the film was able to include Green Lantern's nemesis Sinestro, and develop him well enough to where he just didn't feel like someone for our hero to pound on mindlessly. With all of the attention spent on bringing our hero to life, the same amount of time was spent on making the villain he goes up against just as interesting.

Much like the Wonder Woman movie, Green Lantern - First Flight has a great cast of actors in it. Christopher Meloni does a great job with Hal Jordan/Green Lantern. Victor Garber wasn't someone I would think of to play Sinestro, but he works so well with this character. The rest of the cast are numerous other talented actors like Michael Madsen, John Larroquette, Kurtwood Smith, Larry Drake and Tricia Helfer, who all are great in the film.

I don't know why I'm still surprised at the quality of the animation in these films. By now I should know that DC isn't going to put out a sub-par looking film. Green Lantern - First Flight contains a lot of great looking backgrounds and fantastic character designs. And seeing how the Lanterns did battle with their power rings was nicely done in the film. I used to think this power was lame, but this film made it exciting.

Green Lantern - First Flight is a well crafted movie. It is paced wonderfully, the story contains some nice twists and turns along the way, there is a lot of action and the film has a great soundtrack. This year has been a solid one for straight to video releases. Nice to see Green Lantern - First Flight to rank among the best I've seen so far this year.