Described as "Hal Jordan's Training Day," the Denzel Washington picture, First Flight is a pretty accurate, adventurous, and fun origin of Green Lantern. The designs were great and modern, and the animation was smooth. A truly great looking film.
The voice acting is pretty decent. I had high expectations for Christopher Meloni as Hal, and he excelled pretty well, but not as great as I thought. Tricia Helfer was just passable as Boodikka. John Larroquette and Kurtwood Smith were both strong performers, but I was really surprised at Michael Madsen as Kilowag. I was on the fence initially about how well he would do, but he was really great as Kilowag. And the best of all was Victor Garber. He was the perfect Sinestro. Like Hamil as Joker, Garber is definitely the voice I'll be reading Sinestro in from now on.
The plotline was near perfection. It moved swiftly, and had equal amounts of adventure, humor, and drama. I did not expect it to be so "adult," not that it is incredibly un-kid-friendly, but the use of "ass" and "crap" and a few of the deathscenes were surprising to say the least.
The worst part is the lack of Green Lantern mythos, spoilers ensue. There was no emotional spectrum, not even the relationship between willpower and fear. Instead there were "color elements" which were power sources for their respective Corps, green and yellow being the only ones present. The oath was used once in more of a traditional sense like someone would say the Pledge of Allegiance rather than the mantra to unlock the power within the battery. Nor were the individual batterys seem to play a big part. There was also redesigns of Abin Sur and Kanjar Ro. Abin Sur's was fine since before he was basically a featurless pink man, but Kanjar Ro looked distractingly different and seemed more warlord-like instead of the scumbag smuggler I thought he was.
Ultimately, Green Lantern fans and DC readers will surely enjoy the movie. It is action-packed and well-paced. I suppose a first time viewer would certainly get the gist of the Green Lantern concept and be well prepared for the upcoming live action project, but it skips a lot of the major mythos elements that have really defined the title in recent years.
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