Lanterna Verde: Attenti al mio potere

The animation looks really good during a lot of scenes but DC animation continues to be a decade behind in the way they budger the animation. Considering how good a lot of web series come out now it's high time they up their game. The story is all over the place with Thanagar-Rann war, John Stewart's origin story tweaking, Green Arrow going on a galaxy trotting quest and all the callbacks they can include. The twists are predictable but all these things are pretty much expected from these direct-to-video releases. But the pacing is perfect and there are a lot of moments that really invest you in the film. Being such an engaging film is what made the flaws look more apparent.

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Green Lantern - Beware My Power; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 1.50 Direction: 1.50 Pace: 1.50 Acting: 1.00 Enjoyment: 1.25

TOTAL: 6.75 out of 10.00

DC Comics have made some errors in their progression onto the screen. In all honesty, their series of the nineties and naughties were far superior to anything that has come after. There have been some exceptions to the rules, and GL-Beware My Power is one of them. Though, it shouldn't be, as it bastardises other DC storylines to bring you a newly rehashed origin story of the John Stewart Green Lantern.

The writers of this little masterpiece have stolen stories from throughout the DC Universe. You have the Rann and Thanagarian War - The Sinestro Corp - and Parallax. Any of these storylines would have made a decent movie in its own right. However, Ernie Altbacker and John Semper weave an intriguing story out of those stories' primary elements. Sadly, by doing so they destroy the chances of those superior stories making it to the screen, as they have totally reshaped the continuity (the writers' first fundamental mistake) - something DC is excellent at doing in their Crisis stories. This John Stewart is a cold-blooded killer. At the story's beginning, we see him stationed in an overseas warzone. He is a sniper who thinks nothing of killing the enemy. And that is the second significant mistake the writers make. This John Stewart has more issues than Guy Gardner, who at least fights his anger and fast temper. After leaving the marines, he has trouble readjusting to life on civvy street. We watch as he nearly snaps a guy's neck for trying to ask him to move aside. If it wasn't for the bum, he saves from getting his ass incinerated by a couple of well-intentioned thugs, we'd be hard pushed to see the goodness in the man. And in all truth, it makes little sense for the Guardians Of Oa to choose this John Stewart as a Green Lantern. Altbacker and Semper's GL is so different from the original that it alters how he controls the ring and creates his constructs. Bemused about what he should do, the ring flies him up to the JL Watchtower, where he meets the members on watch - Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, and Vixen. They come up with the idea of visiting Oa so John can learn how to remove the ring, once and for all. However, on their arrival on the planet, they find the Lanterns and the city destroyed. All signs lead them to believe it has something to do with the Rann and Thangarians. So off they fly in search of the truth. But the truth is twisted and dark... One of the worst things the writers do is to condense the Parallax story to a pitifully short timeline. And for a creature that is so powerful, they defeat it too easily. This corruption of the story, though, it works with the writers' tale, had me hanging my head and shaking it in negativity. It's the writer's third underlying mistake.

Jeff Wamester keeps things moving at a cracking pace - we hop through the story like a frog on crack. Keeping the pace at this accelerated tempo is ideal as it keeps the story moving and gives the audience less time to think about the story elements or the differences in the primary characters - Green Arrow doesn't come off as arrogant and self-assured as he should be. As for the animation techniques and styles, well we are back on familiar ground. The artists stick to DC's relatively blocky style, but what has improved is their use of CGI. In previous films, the CGI sections stuck out like a freshly hammered sore thumb. They appear smoother and less conspicuous now but are still a few metres away from perfection.

The voice acting isn't great. In truth, most of the cast could do with taking a refresher course on adding emotion to their vocal performances. Many superheroes come across as wimpy and whiney, especially Hal Jordan (Nolan North), Green Arrow (Jimmi Simpson), and Adam Strange (Brian Bloom). Even Aldis Hodge, who I regarded as a strong up-and-comer after watching him in Leverage, slips the new Green Lantern into the mawngy zone several times.

Though this Green Lantern tale is purloined from several other principal stories, it works. As such, I am happy to recommend it to any Sci-Fi Fantasy Comic Book fan who wants something enjoyable and entertaining to waste an hour and a half. I would highly recommend reading the "Borrowed" stories and the original John Stewart origin story as they all surpass this hashed-and-mashed-up work.

Now Parallax has been defeated in such an easy-peasy and handy-dandy manner, come on over and check out my Holding Out For A Hero, The Final Frontier, and Obsidian Dreams lists to see where I ranked Green Lantern - Beware My Power.

Take Care & Stay Well.

It forgets to actually be a John Stewart origin story and undermines the attempts to explore it's morality but Green Lantern: Beware My Power is still a solid sci-fi adventure that benefits from a strong voice cast, a fast pace and pretty strong animation.

Aldis Hodge is a great John Stewart thanks to the gravitas he brings to the role and he's able to use his talent and presence to make some questionable dialogue work just about. The rest of the voice cast is good with Nolan North being a natural standout.

The animation is once again becoming hemogonized but this style is still way more vibrant and detailed than the previous iteration. The music by Kevin Riepl is really good, adding some ominous sci-fi sounds the typically heroic proceedings.

If you're not caught up on my lore, I have an unhealthy Green Lantern fixation on these characters. There'll be spoilers but I don't think anyone cares anymore.

What better way to start the movie than by killing off the entire corps, every guardian, and blowing up their planet. I remember seeing people on twitter complain so much how one of the guys in charge of this movie admitted he's only read a single John Stewart comic but I can't even blame him since everyone decided his personality consists of being a veteran and nothing else after the Justice League cartoons. John's a character defined by loss and they featured this in the worst way possible by emphasizing his military background; while the death of his wife and the destruction of Xanshi were events he couldn't stop, he willfully joined the military in a country people didn't even want him in. His architect background's not even mentioned even though it's a reason he was personally chosen by the guardians and no one else just like in the movie, in trying to fulfill the master builder prophecy and make a mortal guardian.

Instead they gave him Kyle Rayner's origin, added in Green Arrow for fan service (Hard-Traveling Heroes is a very good comic with Hal and Ollie), and kept emphasizing Hal was the greatest almost as a way to soften fan reaction when he gets killed at the end (and overpowered too for some reason by someone who had the ring for a few days). I guarantee you that stupid Rann-Thanagar war plot was only included so they could awkwardly tease him and Hawkgirl at the end despite them having no chemistry for the sake of the JL cartoons again. Adam Strange was altered a lot for the plot and every character to do with him became a plot device that got killed off when they fulfilled their purpose. They specified Adam's wife was dead but that his daughter was only missing but then they killed him off so the poor girl isn't getting found.

Parallax being included at all was always going to be controversial but I mostly hate how Sinestro became a mustache-twirling villain again. The 2000s comics were basically dedicated to fleshing out these two and now it's further cemented in people's minds that they're two-dimensional. What was the point of including Sinestro Corps members if they aren't using rings at all and why did they have to kill all of them?

It's a okay watch but the more I think about it the less it gets characters right. If you're into cookie-cutter superhero movies, you're probably in the right spot.

What worked was the animation...top notch as usual or better than usual. What didn't work was the story. Sure it started slow with a different angle to the origin story kept me interested till first half of the movie. Unfortunately some middle aged kid suddenly took over the story and messed up the remaining half especially the end. The end was pathetic and unwarranted. Guess another half way down the drain. This lantern is definitely out of juice. Watch it only for the animation.

And enough with origin stories give us something better.