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With so many films released each year, it is foreseeable that they will differ in quality. The wrong director, a poor screenplay, budget problems, or studio interference can turn the best idea into a mediocre or even outright disastrous result.

One of the fascinating aspects of film is to compare two movies that are analogous in tone or genre, but not equivalent in their entertainment value. If the two were directly competing for an audience's satisfaction, one would win easily and the other would lose severely.

The biggest craze in Hollywood over the last few years has been to adapt comic books into hopeful mega-profit franchises. Some of these efforts have been hugely successful, while others were massive mistakes. In 2008, it was the summer of the superhero, with several more on the way, but this summer there was only Wolverine to hold down the comic book fort. Unfortunately, my main memory of that film is of its horrible, blurry CGI figures hopping all over the place like Q*bert. Recently, I watched two direct-to-DVD animated movies from DC Comics. Surprisingly, the film based on the comic that I have followed for several years ended up being a brutal experience, and the hero that I have never had any interest in beside the awesome green costume was easily the most entertaining to watch.

Green Lantern: First Flight

Green Lantern: First Flight is the latest DC Universe animated movie. Much like the Wonder Woman cartoon before it, I had zero interest in the comic book series and was not looking forward to watching the film, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised.

I was slightly familiar with the Green Lantern character due to a few Justice League of America comics, but I always found the use of the green power ring to be too silly. Over a decade ago, comics started to mature in order to retain their aging fans and attempt to gain new readers. Green Lantern using a big green fist to clobber people and seeing a humongous green pair of scissors floating around always seemed way too immature for my tastes. Fortunately, the use of the ring's ability to generate various weapons suits the animated form perfectly. I'm hopeful that the upcoming feature length movie with Ryan Reynolds in the title role can be as successful as the cartoon.

First Flight does not waste much time in creating the origin of Hal Jordan and his first encounter with an alien life form who bestows upon him the green power ring. In less than ten minutes, the new Green Lantern is introduced to the Green Lantern Corps and whisked away into space. The cartoon then becomes a quality science fiction tale with several action set pieces that were very nicely staged. The voice work, score, and 2-D animation are also very well done. Incredibly, the movie even manages to explain the Green Lantern Corps' one weakness, the color yellow, without sounding completely ludicrous. Once again, I hope that the feature film will follow suit with the animated production and write a screenplay involving several planets and alien races as the science fiction genre is criminally underutilized.

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