Green Lantern: First Flight (DVD)
More than three billion years ago, a race of immortals known as the Guardians of the Universe, established a team of heroes based out of a planet at the very center of creation and assigned to defend freedom and justice across the many galaxies. Each hero is given a ring that bestows awesome power. Together they are known as the Green Lantern Corps. When Earth's new representative to the Corps, Hal Jordan is recruited and placed under the supervision of senior Lantern Sinestro, he comes to realize that his trainer and mentor is at the heart of a secret conspiracy threatening the philosophy, tradition and very existence of the Corps that has defended universal law for far longer than Jordan's home world has existed. Now, Jordan must quickly master his new powers to combat the treasonous Lanterns in order to maintain order across the universe.
Amazon.com Green Lantern: First Flight is an animated and lively origin story about the transformation of test pilot Hal Jordan into a member of an intergalactic society watching over the universe. Flying an experimental jet one day, Jordan (voiced by Law and Order: Special Victims Unit's Christopher Meloni) encounters a dying alien who is a Green Lantern protector of Earth's sector of the cosmos. The alien's ring, a repository of enormous power granted by a council of elders called the Guardians, zips onto Jordan's finger, but neither the Guardians nor other Green Lanterns are ready to accept him as an unproven member. Complicating things for Jordan is the fact that the Green Lantern tasked with mentoring him, Sinestro (Victor Garber), is plotting the destruction of the Guardians with the acquisition of "yellow power," the only force that makes the Lanterns' green power useless. Jordan's resilience and willingness to throw himself in harm's way for the good of everyone gain respect, but his inevitable showdown with Sinestro is an epic fight. This PG-13 feature is a bit bloody, and there are a few swear words, but most of the violence arises from that familiar, shape-shifting light emanating from Jordan's ring. Happily, there is some of the old DC Comics wit in the way his Green Lantern ring shapes its beam into such imaginative weapons as a golf club and a flyswatter. --Tom Keogh
