DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - Green Lantern: First Flight (2009)

Written In January 2014

So much better than the Ryan Reynolds movie! That alone is enough for me! Although this movie doesn’t have the late great Michael Clarke Duncan as Kilowag, which was a big highlight of that movie. Never the less, time for me to tell you what this damn movie’s about.

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

Before any other sentient beings existed in the universe, a race of beings calling themselves the Guardians of the Universe harnessed the power of the green element, the greatest power in the universe, to create the Green Lantern battery. However, the battery was vulnerable to the color yellow, the one part of the light spectrum that could resist green. The Guardians hid the most concentrated source of yellow energy, the yellow element, to prevent others from using it against them.

After the death of Abin Sur, several Green Lanterns arrive to take Ferris Aircraft’s test pilot Hal Jordan (Christopher Meloni) to the Green Lantern Corps on Oa. He is placed under the supervision of respected senior officer Sinestro (Victor Garber), who is investigating Abin’s murder. While undercover on the ship of Kanjar Ro (Kurtwood Smith) searching for the whereabouts of the stolen yellow element, Abin had come under attack. Fleeing to Earth, he had his ring find his successor and died of his injury shortly after. Unbeknownst to the other Green Lanterns, Sinestro had provided Kanjar with the location of the element in order to have it fashioned into a weapon of comparable power to the Green Lantern battery.

Jordan quickly comes to understand that Sinestro’s beliefs are not in line with those of the Guardians: Sinestro believes that the Guardians have reduced the Corps to merely picking up the messes criminals create as opposed to proactively dealing with the problem. During a mission to capture Kanjar Ro, Jordan is knocked unconscious by Kanjar’s energy staff. Sinestro comes in and kills Kanjar, pinning the blame on Jordan. As punishment, the Guardians strip Jordan of his ring.

While Jordan waits to be taken home, Sinestro uses his ring to temporarily animate Kanjar’s corpse, allowing him to learn the location of Qwardwhere the yellow element weapon is being fashioned. Jordan convinces fellow Lanterns Boodikka (Tricia Helfer) and Kilowog (Michael Madsen) that Sinestro is not what he seems. When they catch Sinestro red-handed, Boodikka reveals her true allegiance and incapacitates Kilowog, allowing Sinestro to escape. Jordan tricks her into destroying Kanjar’s unstable energy staff, the explosion launching her into the tools hanging from the ceiling and killing her.

On Qward, the Weaponers bestow Sinestro with the yellow ring and battery, the latter of which resembles Ranx the Sentient City. Using its power, he lays waste to Oa, the yellow light easily overpowering the Green Lantern rings. The yellow battery destroys the green battery, rendering all the Green Lantern Corps’ power rings inert and causing death by asphyxiation of countless Green Lanterns who were in space at the time of their rings’ failure. Jordan, having recovered his ring moments too late, finds the battery and pounds on the inert green element. He places his ring on the small crack that appears, absorbing the whole of its power. Imbued with the full might of the green energy, he destroys the yellow battery by crushing it between two moons.

Having exhausted most of the green power to destroy the yellow battery, Jordan is left to fight against Sinestro under his own power. After an intense hand-to-hand battle without constructs, Jordan uses the last of his power to knock Sinestro to the surface of Oa where Kilowog crushes the yellow ring (as well as Sinestro’s hand) with his foot. Having regained partial power to his ring earlier, Kilowog takes to the air and saves Jordan from a fatal fall to the planet’s surface.

Once Oa is rebuilt and the Green Lantern battery restored, the Guardians give the privilege of leading the Corps in reciting the Green Lantern oath to Jordan. Jordan then leaves for Earth to check in with his other boss, Carol Ferris (Olivia d'Abo), remarking on the long “commute”.

This is the second time I’ve watched this movie, and I can definitely say, it’s just as good a second time, if not better. If I were to describe this movie to a friend of mine, I think I’d describe it as Star Wars meets Training Day. In fact, there’s a scene where Sinestro is berating Hal in this movie, that if you had Victor Garber quoting Denzel Washington’s bit about how “King Kong ain’t got SHIT ON ME!” it wouldn’t feel all that out of place. Aside from the fact that that kind of language is never used throughout this film. Anywho, what was good and bad here?

PROS:

• I’ve never watched any of the newer Law & Order shows, okay, SVU has been around since ‘99, but I’ve still never watched it. Either way, Christopher Meloni sold me on his Hal Jordan VERRRRRRRY quickly. I’d say he’s just as good Nathan Fillion and Josh Keaton are!
• Victor Garber as Sinestro!
  
• Michael Madsen as Kilowag, I have no idea who this guy is, but he does a great job as the big poozer!
• The action is terrific, especially the final fight between Sinestro and Hal!
• For once, the Gaurdians aren’t written as either incompetent morons or isolationist douchebags who are actually psychotic! They’re actually effective, and simply work as a functioning police council.
• Early on in the film, Hal notes that his uncle was a police officer who would frequently take him along on ride alongs. This would actually be a good explanation why Hal so quickly picks up on how to act like a cop.
• I really liked the designs of the suits here, it looks like actual armor! Something you would wear if you part of an ancient intergalactic police force.
• This really feels like a cop movie in a science fiction setting, which I think really makes for a great Green Lantern movie.

CONS:

• I think the Guardians are a little too quick to assume Hal killed Kanjar Ro, especially when he swears up and down he didn’t kill him.
• I’m a little miffed nobody thinks to bring up the issue of racism when a large amount of the Guardians say he’s unqualified because he’s a human.

All in all, this one was a pure delight. I won’t be getting into any controversial issues this review, although there is still something I’d like to address. Is Lauren Montgomery a big DBZ fan? Because when Hal winds up covered in the green lantern energy, I could’ve sworn it was like someone just accidentally recolored the Super Saiyan sequence green or something. In fact, there’s one bit where Hal is forming these spheres in front of his chest, and charging them before blasting Sinestro with them. I half-expected him to yell out “Kame Hame HA!!!!!!!” I mean honestly, look at this shit!

This is Hal all covered in the Green Lantern energy

And this is, of course, Son Goku, while going Super Saiyan. Anybody else see the resemblance? Huhn? Do we gotta worry about Bruce Timm getting slapped with a lawsuit from Akira Toriyama? Well maybe not, he didn’t sue 20th Century Fox for pissing all over the series he worked so hard to create.

Okay, enough cracks about DBZ, haha. So like I was saying, any real cons I have in this movie are just details I had to stop and think about it. I enjoyed this movie from start to finish, and can’t wait to see more from good ol’ Hal Jordan, I’m going to give Green Lantern: First Flight, an 8.5 out of 10!