Green Lantern: First Flight (2009)

People are voting emotionally.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This movie has me loving this DC Comics super-hero Green Lantern. I like to say that seven characters had been given the title of "Green Lantern." Of course, the ring of the first Lantern Alan Scott was fashioned by him, and its power came a magic lantern he had found. By 1959, the character became the sci-fi superhero comic fans know today - Hal Jordan, a pilot who was given a green ring from a dying alien, who is part of an intergalactic police force the Green Lantern Corps. Now Hal is the first human to be a member of the corps.I have watched this film on Netflix and I found it an awesome take on that origin story. This movie has great animation, excellent casting, thrilling sci-fi action and a shocking surprise. I thought Victor Garber voiced a convincing Sinestro. Overall I love this film from beginning to end. And I also love the live-action Green Lantern movie too.

Recap: Test pilot Hal Jordan is out on a routine mission that ends in a very odd way. He is recruited to an interstellar police force called the Green Lanterns. However, humans is not held in the highest regard and Hal is only admitted if he goes under the tutorship of veteran Lantern Sinestro. Sinestro is on the hunt for criminals that plans to create a weapon that threatens the entire universe. But Sinestro's methods is questionable, brutal and suspiciously unethical in Jordan's mind.Comments: An animated action movie that follows every standard steps and rather regretfully doesn't add anything new. It is actually so predictable it becomes boring, and as it is animated, not even the effects brightens the picture enough for it to become entertaining. It's highly rated, and maybe for fans this has something that me, as someone not familiar to the Green Lantern before, misses. But I can't see this movie recruiting any new fans anytime soon. 4/10

"Green Lantern: First Flight" is a darn decent movie, especially for a direct to DVD movie. The animation is fluid and crisp. By the end of the movie the characters felt well developed. The writing is excellent, though the plot itself is ordinary and would feel clichéd under a less competent writer and director. On the negative, I think that the entire the movie lacks due to its limited time of seventy minutes. I think at five or six minutes, too little time was spent on Earth. I felt that I had no idea who Hal Jordon was before he was a Green Lantern, which could have been fixed by following the main character for a day or even a few hours of his life. The problem with that is there is no part of the movie that the time necessary for that could be taken from. Hal Jordon would be more nervous or anxious or scared that aliens are suddenly coming to his home planet, giving him a power ring and taking him far away from the only planet he has ever been on. Over all a good movie, but it has some problems.

I haven't read the GL comics for several years, mostly since they switched Hal Jordan for the new guy(s). However, most of the characters are familiar in this movie and I don't feel I missed a thing (except a giant boxing glove!) It was nice to see GL up on the "big" screen for a change -- this could certainly be done live-action nowadays. However, it seems like a pilot for a TV series (like Clone Wars was).I thought I saw a few references to old sci-fi icons in this one -- Cooch looked like that cucumber alien from It Conquered the World, and I think the spaceship the GLs ferried Hal Jordan to Oa the first time resembled the Phantom Cruiser from Space Ghost.I would have liked to see more of the actual weakness of the green ring to yellow, perhaps having it fizzle out somehow when it contacted that color. However, it seemed to have no weakness at all, even to the point of being able to damage the Yellow Lantern (albeit cleverly). Even if it was explained it was only affecting the black parts, it would have made sense.