Green Lantern: First Flight
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)
