Let me just say right up front that I've never read a single comic book in my entire life (I just couldn't get into them as a kid), so that's why I'm very thankful for the existence of film adaptations based upon these superheroes' backstories and mythos. The first time I'd ever heard of the Green Lantern character was in 2011, back when the whole fiasco of Ryan Reynolds' critical and commercial failure was released onto the big-screen (only a couple of years after this animated film originally came out). Say whatever you want about it by all means (personally, I didn't think it was as awful as everyone makes it out to be), but that financial bomb helped expose many people (such as myself) to the fictional world and expansive lore of the Green Lanterns (so in a way, I suppose not all box-office flops are completely worthless).
Under the surface of things, Green Lantern: First Flight (2009) is really a more in-depth character study about Thaal Sinestro - a tired and bitterly broken-down veteran member of The Corps who finally goes rogue when his faith in the Guardians' justice system has been pushed to its limits and ultimately, his own rigid beliefs in achieving total peace and order in the universe are skewed far beyond repair. It's refreshing to have a superhero film that takes the time to properly establish its antagonist's motivations, even if the character himself is a bit underdeveloped in certain areas (I still say Thanos in Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War is the number one best supervillain out there, which was all thanks to The Russo Brothers meticulously fleshing him out to the point where you could then start to understand the reasoning for his extremist attitude). That being said, even thought it feels a lot more small-scale than it actually is, the film still manages to provide the same amount of action spectacle as any MCU movie would.
Hal Jordan still retains his archetypal character traits (from what I've heard about the actual comics, that is) of having a cocky and brash personality, while also maintaining the likeable and heroic qualities of his otherworldly superhero persona as a smooth-talking, and sometimes smart-mouthed, inexperienced rookie cop on his first terrifying assignment. And by the way, no offence to Christopher Meloni's voice acting, but I actually think I prefer Nathan Fillion voicing the eponymous character (his vocal performance in Emerald Knights just fits the role a lot more).
For a direct-to-DVD animated movie, I thought the action sequences were very well choreographed by the talented team of animation artists. The fight scenes in traditional hand-drawn animation tends to look awkward, in a stiff and jerky kind of way (a little rough around the edges, is all I'm saying), and although that's usually the case for most of them, I'm happy to say the animators were experienced enough at knowing how to pull it off in a way that made the lengthy battles appear to have fluent and swift movements when it came to the characters' actions (I mean after all, this is the same team who also worked on the animated Wonder Woman film). The only other good 2D cartoons, which are primarily action-oriented, that I know of are the original Ben 10 series and the 2003 revitalisation of TMNT.
To sum things up; not even a $200 million big-scale "blockbuster" could compare to this action-packed, yet somehow humble, cartoon feature. This was everything that the expensive live-action movie should've been in order to impress casual audiences worldwide and start a whole new ongoing film franchise (but sadly, that never came to pass).
