The thing that's so great about Green Lantern comics is that, as opposed to most superheroes, who are confined to a set range of powers, these guys' powers are limited only by their imagination. With their rings, they can conjure any tool, weapon, machine, or device -- ordinary or novel -- as long as they can think of it. That's not even to mention how stories about the Green Lanterns can be set on Earth or distant planets, can stick closely to humankind or feature any number of aliens, and can be based on events of cosmic or everyday proportions. Green Lantern: First Flight, an animated direct-to-DVD from DC Comics, is a typical hero story, celebrating the demonstration of courage in the face of defeat, yet it is lacking in an area that no Green Lantern story has an excuse for not excelling in: originality.

Air Force pilot Hal Jordan is finishing up a flight simulation when suddenly his simulator unit lifts off, crashes through the ceiling, flies a little ways, and places him in front of a crash-landed alien, a member of the Green Lantern Corps, who gives Jordan his ring. With this ring, as the cliché goes, comes great power and great responsibility. The Green Lantern Corps is a league of beings from all across the universe, each designated as the guardian of one of the universe's sectors. Jordan is soon whisked away to the planet Oa, the Green Lantern headquarters, to be chastised a little for being a human and to then begin his duties as a Green Lantern, under the tutelage of a Green Lantern named Sinestro. If you have ever read a book or a comic or watched a TV show or a movie, then you will know by Sinestro's name and appearance that he's gonna turn out to be a bad guy. A save-the-world scenario ensues, and you can safely guess what happens from there.

The story is actually pretty involving for the first fifteen minutes or so. Jordan suddenly finds himself with enormous responsibility placed on his shoulders (though he doesn't so much as blink throughout any of the massive changes his life undergoes), and working with Sinestro he finds himself in the uncomfortable moral dilemma of being the pupil of a "peacekeeper" with very questionable morals. It's like the superhero version of Training Day at first. After Jordan impedes Sinestro's near-torture of an alien woman who potentially holds some key information about a suspect, Sinestro admonishes him with, "The only way to operate out here is by fear. They hit; I hit harder. They attack; I annihilate. I am the one constant, unassailable force against their chaos [...]." His eloquence and logic are frighteningly convincing. However, it is not too long until it's revealed that Sinestro really is a bad guy, at which point his character loses all complexity.

As a simple "courageous hero" story, First Flight does fine. It is structured to maximize its impact in that way. Jordan is viewed with utmost skepticism throughout basically the entire film -- due to his being a human and his being framed for killing an evildoer when he was not supposed to -- yet he never loses hope nor ceases trying to save the Corps from Sinestro. Neither when his superiors scold him nor when Sinestro seems to be guaranteed victory does he even consider giving up. The movie pits all odds against him, so in the end, when he emerges victorious, his heroism is about as great as it could be.

Despite First Flight's structural integrity, the experience is rarely fun or exciting. I don't know how much leeway writer Alan Burnett was given with this project, but it is puzzling how, with such an enormous palette, the film makes so few attempts at standing out. The threat is nothing more involved than a character's attempt to overturn the Green Lantern Corps and rule the universe himself. Jordan's character enjoys almost zero development before he gets the ring and has to kick into hero mode, which works well for the film's focus on bravery but which is given no nuances so as to make it new. None of the other characters are developed, either, beyond establishing their basic personae, and only a handful of them are afforded so much as that. This is the film's biggest underlying flaw.

Amazingly, another area that is stale most of the time is the action. When the action does get creative, it's pretty fun, featuring things like giant fists, giant golf clubs, and, to save a falling comrade, giant floor fans. However, most of the time the heroes are using their rings in such mundane ways as shooting green beams of ... hurt, I guess, or protecting themselves with green shields or bubbles. There is one scene with about a dozen Green Lanterns fighting Sinestro, and, due to a special source of power, the latter plows through them with little effort, but the whole event amounts to little more than a fistfight/shootout, like a saloon brawl that takes place in outer space instead of a saloon. The Green Lanterns, I think, need to spend some time studying up on what kinds of things they can make their rings do. In the eons that the Corps have been protecting the universe, have none of them thought of anything better to protect themselves from projectiles with than a simple green wall? Why not a wall of machine guns, or at least spikes? Surely with a little practice they could ingrain that in their minds so that it comes as quickly and naturally as a plain shield. The ring element of the film had endless possibilities, but rarely are its possibilities tapped.

Saving the movie from total boredom, its colors are at times dazzling. The illustration of the characters and scenery is a bit juvenile, consisting of too many sharp angles to make things look more intense, but the vividness of the colors between those lines (especially on Blu-ray) is purely delightful. The green of the rings' weapons is, of course, where the color's brilliance is most prominent, outshining (literally) everything else on screen. Even the ending credits are difficult to look away from. The visuals are not quite enough to elevate the film from "basic virtuous hero movie" status, but they do make it easy to sit through.

Despite a few good qualities, Green Lantern: First Flight is likely only to be enjoyed by those who are so in love with Green Lantern comics that they read every one, not because they are looking for a good story but because they just love the basic idea of Green Lanterns so much. Now, this is a perfectly legitimate reason for reading or watching something (if I had to have a valid artistic reason for loving half the stuff I do, I would be quite a miserable person), but a film that pleases only this kind of audience obviously has limited appeal. This is for die-hard Green Lantern fans only.