Green Lantern: First Flight

A pleasant introduction to one of DC Comics most beloved heroes, an origin story well adapted and finely crafted in terms of its animation. I find most DC films from its animated universe to be of top-quality, and this effort is no less. Perhaps it doesn't fully share the spectacularity of Justice League films or the grandeur of Superman, or the somberness of Batman, but it feels rather cosmic in its nature, it takes on an astronomical dimension obviously due to Green Lantern's stories mostly taking place in outer space. To me is utterly satisfying when a hero and their stories develop an atmosphere of their own, and are able to produce a sense of warming familiarity when you are watching.

Make sure you watch this, if you don't know the first thing about Hal Jordan's Green Lantern, definitely check this movie out, and even if you do you'll realize what a fine origin story WB has in store for fans.

A very solid effort from the writers and animators at DC. The origin of GL, Hal Jordan, is solidly told, if a little quickly and predictably. We have the dying alien, Abin Suhr, giving his ring to someone worthy, ace pilot Hal, a decent guy doing a hard job and trying to have fun with it.

And fun he has! Hal takes to the ring like a duckling takes to water, and soon he is flying high with the other Green Lanterns, getting into trouble on alien worlds, and saving the day.

The pluses of the movie are many. The animation is smooth, and green never looked so good. The voices are excellent. Christopher Meloni excels as Hal, and Victor Garber is suavely evil as Sinestro. All the other voice roles are handled well; in fact, there are no slackers in the bunch.

The music is also excellent, providing drama when necessary, being playful and light at others. As always, the alien worlds were depicted imaginatively. Watching this movie might have been somewhat predictable, but it was a fun ride all the way.

Its only drawback was that Hal took to his power ring too quickly. No practice, no failures in forming constructs...nada. A little exposition might have made the screenplay work better, but all the same, it was enjoyable, and the ending fight between Hal and Sinestro was superbly staged. A worthy addition to any fan's animated collection.

It just fails to really introduce us to Hal Jordan before he gets the powers, and after that, he's kind of a "Gary Stu" (male's version of Mary Sue) that in my opinion is a pretty weak character beyond some fine jokes here and there.

Yet, when the plot of the actual story takes off, it has great pace, good twists and particularly violent action (compared to other movies of the genre), that serves the (considerably serious) tone well.

The third act is more "typical", but the animation finds another gear (and the great use of color and good desings help) and the action is good enough to end the movie on a high point.

What did you expect from this? Animation that is decent, but nothing spectacular, lots of pretty colors and funny faces, everyday guy with large manly jaw becoming galactic marshal rookie, rookie fighting evil, rookie defeating evil. I knew what was going to happen, who was the bad guy and how good will prevail from the first 10 minutes, yet it still was fun :) Sneaky sobs!

Bottom line: it's a cartoon for kids. Nobody sings, thank you very much, but there isn't much humour in it either. A simple plot which explains the birth of the Green Lantern superhero. To their defense, I doubt they could have squeezed much in it anyway, as the plot was packed with action from beginning to start.

i thought this was a very well done animated movie.it's the origin story of how Hal Jordan became a Green Lantern.i have no idea how close it is to the original comic book origin.but i do knew,i loved the story.i thought it flowed very well,with a good mixture of action and drama.i thought the voice acting was terrific.plus,they seemed to have a good script to work with.i found the dialogue to be really good,as well.none of the usual cheese we tend to see in many animated or even live action movies.i think this particular animated film is as good as any of the recent spate of releases by both Marvel and DC,and it's certainly as entertaining.for me,Green Lantern:First Flight is an 8/10