Thank's to my cable subscription, I was able to see Green Lantern: Emerald Knights a day early. I must admit, I had some reservations based on DC's earlier forays into animation (cough...cough....Superman:Doomsday)but I decided to roll the dice and give this a shot. Let me get straight to the point. This film will probably beat your expectations but it still missed some opportunities to be truly special.
If you're a Hal Jordan lover, you may be a little miffed as he isn't really the main focus of the story. Instead, Hal is the narrator, retelling historical events of the Core's past to a new recruit and does so with the back-drop of an impending galactic catastrophe on the horizon. If your familiar with the Core then these stories aren't all that new to you and some of the slight tweaks will probably irk you a little; however, if you are new to the mythos these stories will be very informative and can serve as a prep for the upcoming movie. Now to the action.
The story starts out with a big bang that gets you excited but then sort of loses steam as we go into story-telling mode.I would say these scenes are akin to 2008's Batman: Gotham Knight but lack that film's cohesion. In the side-stories, we get the tales of the First Lantern, Kilowog's first battle, Laira's first solo mission, Mogo vs Balfunga, and lastly an Abin Sur tale.There are tons of easter eggs in the 5 tales that will cause hardcore fans to geek out and really makes the movie purchase worth it.
Now for the bad. The voice attacking really suffers at times. Henry Rollins often plays tough guys on screen but as Kilowog he sounds like a pubescent Disney mouseketeer (I'm exaggerating but he was that bad). However, Fillion is great as Hal and Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men) is spot on as Arisia. The animation is really top-knotch but we are treated to the Jon Stewart JLU approach of firing light rays and not actually building constructs. Speaking of Jon, can a brother get some spotlight. Or Guy or Kyle, or heck even Alan Scott. My last drawback is that this film is stand-alone and is in no way connected to Green Lantern: First Flight. Seeing as how Hal is schooling a rookie, seems like it would have made more sense to have the two films be connected.
Overall, the film is good not great. Watch it for the easter eggs and cameos of lesser DC figures not for a great story. I would give it
3.5 stars out of 5.
Enjoy the Stills!
About The Author:
CBM writer for a decade+.
Follow MarkJulian on:
