Review of Green Lantern: First Flight (2009) by Zach M — 26 Jul 2009

Before seeing this movie I had only ever had a passing interest in the Green Lantern character. I thought his character was handled very well in the Justice League cartoon, which featured several good to excellent storylines based around him, not to mention fantastic voice work from Phil LaMarr. While Green Lantern: First Flight might not be the best Green Lantern story out there, it's at least a passable one.

First Flight is an origin tale based on the first (human) Green Lantern, Hal Jordon an airforce pilot who gets chosen by the titular green power ring after its original owner, Abunn S'er (I think that's how you say his name... it's probably not how you spell it though -- sue me, geeks), dies.

The main problem I had with this movie is that we get almost no character development for its main character, Hal Jordon. There's one tiny scene in the beginning that establishes him as being a little cocky, but that's all; nothing else. The ring chooses him to be part of the Green Lantern Corps., which protects the galaxy, etc, and he justs immediately goes with it, no questions asked. He isn't even amazed by the fact that the ring's original owner was a freakin' alien for god's sake! To give you an idea of what I mean, all of this happens within the first five minutes.

After that he's off to protect the galaxy from baddies, and the one responsible for Abunn S'er's death. Again, no development whatsoever, he just goes along with it. Frankly, it felt like a third of the movie was missing, and although it didn't totally ruin the movie, it did drastically affect my rating of it.

As for the animation, it is top notch, offering something just a little better than what was seen in the Justice League cartoon.The voice acting was also good, with only a couple of voices sounding a bit weak.

If you're a Green Lantern fan, you're likely to be a little dissapointed with this movie. Granted, it's not terrible by any means, it just doesn't develop it's main character at all, which makes the rest of the movie suffer.