- Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is the second Warner Brothers Animated film to consist of a series of related vignettes, each constructed by different writers and directors. The first such effort, Batman: Gotham Knight, was a surprisingly well-crafted look at various interpretations of The Caped Crusader, the film being most notable for the immensely distinct artistic styles featured in each segment. In that respect, there is considerably less to admire about Green Lantern. Mind you, the art and animation are always good -- quite good, in fact -- but the film contains very little of the startling creative diversity that made the Batman film such a success.
- Instead, we get a completely adequate set of stories about Green Lanterns other than that famous guardian of Sector 2814, Hal Jordan (Nathan Fillion). Some of these tales are entertaining enough, including those of "First Lantern" Avra (Mitchell Whitfield), the training of brave Kilowog (Henry Rollins), and the strange contest between that most worldly Lantern, Mogo, and his hilarious tormentor, Bolphunga the Unrelenting (Roddy Piper!). The others, focusing on Lantern Laira's (Kelly Hu) impressive commitment to the Core, the friendship between Abin Sur (Arnold Vosloo) and Sinestro (Jason Isaacs), and trainee Arisia Rrab's (Elisabeth Moss) impressive first day on the job are watchable, but unremarkable. That's not nearly enough to top even the previous animated Lantern flick (Green Lantern: First Flight), but it may very well be enough to propel it light years beyond the purportedly awful live-action film.
- Actually, this film may be most notable for mercifully omitting the oft-depicted death of Abin Sur.
