Green Lantern - First Flight

I got lucky today and got to view an advanced copy of 'Green Lantern - First Flight' the newest DC animated feature. Its the origin story of Hal Jordan and his first days as the hero Green Lantern. The story begins with the crash landing and death of Abin Sur, the Green Lantern of our sector of space. Abin Sur sends his ring off to find one worthy of it and as we know it chooses test Pilot Hal Jordan to be its new master. Abin Sur dies and Jordan is sent off planet to train for his new role as one of the universe’s cosmic policemen. Of course this means that he will not only have to learn on the job quickly but will face his future greatest foe, the renegade lantern, Sinestro. At first Sinestro is assigned to train the rookie but we know right away that there is something wrong with Sinestro and his methods. Anyone who knows the comic will be aware that conflict between these two is inevitable. I very much enjoyed this story as it has all the great elements one who is familiar with and loves the comic have come to expect - OA, the Green Lantern Corps, Killowag, the Guardians ect... Hal is brave and resourceful, imaginative and a born leader. Sinestro is scheming and arrogant. There is a story involving the creation of the Yellow Lanterns but this is merely there to set up the conflict and demonstrate how great a hero Hal was right from the start. There is more death than one would expect from an animated movie but that was necessary to create a truly evil villain in Sinestro while making Hal’s ascension as mythical as it was always meant to be. One of my favourite parts occur when Hal uses his light powers to construct such earth shapes and flyswatters, golf clubs, boots, and baseball bats. Its a great homage to the old silver age comics. This is the way we always hoped a cartoon version of this story would be. The animation is excellent but we have come to expect that from these features. My only complaint is that the film really seemed shorter than most other DC features. I hope that they make another for release just in time for the live action movie starring Ryan Reynolds which is suppose to come out late 2010. They have already introduced the idea of the whole light spectrum of Lanterns and their powers and depending on the success of “Blackest Night’, that idea would make excellent source material for any animated sequel.