Green Lantern: Les Chevaliers de l'Emeraude

This is WB and DC doing a little warm-up for the big budget movie on Green Lantern that is coming out this month.

As always, the Animation Team probably has a better grasp on the characters and settings than the suits in Hollywood ever do.

The Green Lantern Corps faces an inter-dimensional threat, and while they wait for the final confrontation, they tell stories of the greatest accomplishments of the Corps.

The movie is probably at its weakest in the fact that they have Nathan Fillian of "Firefly" fame doing the voice of Hal Jordan (Why isn't he doing it in the Live Action version? Why?) but he is only involved in the wrap around story that keeps the plot moving from one section to the next.

The stories themselves are quite good, though. Each one a little gem, even if a bit predictable even for the fan who is familiar with this universe.

Emerald Knights has a story it does, but it makes up a small percentage of the film as most of it is short tales being regaled to the newest member of the Lantern Corps.

Some are good, some are meh, but the whole thing felt very incomplete due to this.

With fantastic voice talent including Nathan Fillion, Henry Rollins & Kelly Hu the effort/budget clearly went into this but alike the original Green Lantern offering I simply don't get the appeal.

Weird aliens, bizzare powers and lore that keeps shifting.

What bugs me about all these animated movies is that they aren't connected and have no consistency. Characters who died are back, events that happened never took place etc etc and that's very evident here. They really need to make an animated universe and stick with it.

Emerald Knights isn't terrible, I'm just not the demographic.

The Good:

Opening sequence was brutal

Kelly Hu & Henry Rollins

The Bad:

Contradicts the lore in places

Spread rather thin

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The guardians are smurfs

The six Green Lantern stories in a single animation film. Kilowog and Mogo are the coolest. Thanks to HBO Asia for giving us this.

Green Lantern Emerald Knights is a soft reboot to Green Lantern First Flight. It uses the same art style as First Flight but the events in the two films are not connected in any way. In this one, Hal Jordan is already a well established Green Lantern, while First Flight has him starting out as a Green Lantern. With the plot lines with Sinestro in both films, no way this one is exactly a sequel per say. This one does have way more exposition, of which is why I prefer this one. It does really does a good job at developing the universe, way more so than First Flight. If you want any recommendations for Green Lantern films, this is the one I would recommend the most.

After loving the sublime Batman: Under the Red Hood earlier in the year, I decided to give another DC straight-to-DVD animated film a watch and I'm glad I did.

The plot is told as pretty much a frame story of episodic flashbacks of the Green Lantern's past. All I found interesting and easily accessible for a newbie, like myself. There were a few giggles at some of the silliness in the GL universe but that's inherent in the conceit itself, anyway.

The voice acting was mostly strong, the animation had some spectacularly awe-inspiring scenes, the score too was good and it importantly had heart to back up all the spectacle.

Overall, possibly the best superhero film this year in terms of consistency and I like this brave team that's sort of like an intergalactic police force-7/10.