I pretty much panned the live action Green Lantern movie in my review published right here on Nine Over Ten 9/10 several days ago. However, I forgot to mention that there are superior feature-length Green Lantern movies, albeit animated ones in the form of Green Lantern: First Flight and Green Lantern: Emerald Knights.
First Flight (Amazon: USD 18, Blu-ray, click here) is the earlier of the two, and is basically Hal Jordan’s first major case right after being inducted into the Green Lantern Corps. Sinestro betrays the Corps, harnesses the yellow light of fear to wreck havoc on his former Corps before being brought down by Hal with help from Killowog.
Emerald Knights (Amazon: USD 17, Blu-ray, click here) on the other hand features Hal as a veteran of the corps, telling the new recruit Arissa stories of some of the most illustrious members of the Corps as they prepare to face an old foe hell-bent on destroying Oa, home base of the Green Lantern Corps.
Having said that, what the live action film lacked, these two animated films had in spades: amazing space battles, special effects, and the Green Lantern Corps in action. Emerald Knights deserves special mention, since its plot device results in 5 mini stories being told, with some of the funniest, and bloodiest scenes I’ve seen so far in a DC animated film.
First Flight was indeed better than the live-action movie. Haven’t managed to catch Emerald Knights yet tho’. IMHO I quite liked the Ryan Reynold’s movie. But that’s just me… to be fair to the makers, they had a lot to measure up to and a lot of concepts to introduce to non Green Lantern fans. I still rate it highly and I’m pretty sure with the current set-up they’d have a better sequel planned.