Green Lantern: Emerald Knights (2011)
Dirs. Christopher Berkeley / Lauren Montgomery / Jay Oliva
A monstrous evil — i.e., some gubbins about shadow demons, a rift in the nearby Sun, and an anti-matter universe — forces the Elders of the Green Lantern Corps to take drastic measures, which results in every available Lantern queueing up to get their power rings charged. Next to each other in line are Hal Jordan (Nathan Fillion) and a rookie named Arisia Rrab (Elisabeth Moss), who inherited her ring just three days prior and is understandably nervous.
Hal tries to distract the girl from the coming danger by telling her stories from the Corps' past, which is a pretty basic set-up for an anthology with six stories in all; one bridge and five others told via flashback.
Many of the most popular Lanterns are present, including Kilowog (Henry Rollins), Abin Sur (Arnold Vosloo), and Sinestro (Jason Isaacs).
Hal's first story is about the first ever Lantern, a scribe named Avra (Mitchell Whitfield). Next up we get a tale of Kilowog's time in boot camp, seeing him butt heads with a strong-willed Sergeant (Wade Williams). The third story recounts Laira's (Kelly Hu) first solo mission.
The next two are based on stories by Alan Moore, but you won't find his name in the credits. The first of them features Roddy Piper as a brutal warrior named Bolphunga the Unrelenting, while the second is a story with Abin Sur, the Lantern from whom Hal inherited his power ring.
The positives: animation is top-notch, with some tricky perspectives well-realised; voice work from all concerned is excellent; and none of the stories get too complex or hard to follow - even a flashforward to a future time while in a flashback from the present time is handled concisely.
On the flip side, overall it's structurally uneven, and the story-within-a-story construction keeps it from fully developing any of its themes. There's lots of action punctuated by some minor emotional depth at irregular intervals that, if it had been elevated to be on equal footing with the green explosions, could've made everything seem better than it is.
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