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*This review contains some minor SPOILERS*
Despite mostly grounding the space-faring Green Lantern characters in a small Midwest town on Earth, great writing, some intriguing mysteries, and strong character work brought to life by great acting allow “Lanterns” to be a first-rate show.
The overall plot sees multiple mysteries woven throughout the season. The main story is tied to aliens and classic Green Lantern lore, and despite it seemingly getting wrapped up mid-season, there turns out to be more story to tell. A second major mystery is dropped at the end of the pilot episode, and thanks to smart use of jumping around different time frames, the show keeps its premise while slowly working towards the reveal. While the basic story features significant material from the Green Lantern comics, the setting often makes it feel like this is a job beneath the Green Lantern Corp. It also doesn’t help that, presumably because of budgetary reasons, pretty much all the aliens we do see are disguised as humans. This really makes the cosmic nature of the story fizzle out.
The characters are what allow the show to really shine. Even though he keeps a lot of what he’s thinking and feeling close to the vest, John Stewart is still an easy character to root for. The same is true of Hal Jordan, except in his case, he’s brash and cocky but damn good at what he does. Both Aaron Pierre as Stewart and Kyle Chandler as Jordan crush their roles. Particularity Chandler, who ends up playing Jordan as various points in his life that give us the same character, but he’s clearly a different man. Sheriff Kane and Zoe Macon bring some important shades of Grey to the story, while the remaining characters are fine. They do exactly what they need to do to tell this story.
When the show does spend some money on the superhero moments that one would expect from a Green Lantern show, it typically looks pretty good. The actual ring effects looks great, but the flying sequences can look a bit stiff at times. The few moments we get to see alien words, it’s clearly just some place on Earth like a desert, but some cool filters and sound effects do just enough to make things feel alien.
Overall, “Lanterns” doesn’t quite live up to the space adventures associated with Green Lantern, but a few solid mysteries and interesting character brought to life by great acting keep almost every moment of screen time interesting.
**** out of *****