DC Comics has filled the ranks of the Green Lantern Corps with a large and diverse roster of humans and aliens who serve as intergalactic peacekeepers, but adaptations have primarily focused on Silver Age Green Lantern Hal Jordan. Green Lantern: Beware My Power, the latest film in DC's Tomorrowverse animated film continuity, aims to formally pass the mantle to Marine Corps veteran John Stewart (Aldis Hodge), a natural choice given that the character has been part of the comic book canon since the 1970s. and was a central member of the Justice League animated series. Unfortunately, the film falls short of its own lofty ambitions, delivering a murky moral message and a story bogged down by many other characters.
Jeff Wamester, who also directed the Tommorowverse movie Justice Society: World War II, casts Stewart as a sniper battling PTSD after his time in Afghanistan. He initially thinks he's losing his mind when he encounters a dying alien in a crashed spaceship, a riff on Hal's classic origin story, and is given the immense power of a Green Lantern ring. Failing to connect him to Green Lantern headquarters on Oa, the helpful ring sends John to Justice League headquarters to learn more about what his new job means.
Director: Jeff Wamester
Writers: Ernie Altbacker, John Semper
Stars: Aldis Hodge, Jimmi Simpson, Nolan North
This triggers the first of many sequences in the movie where the heroes initially struggle to show off their powers and relative strengths before realizing this is all a huge misunderstanding. Wamester and writers Ernie Altbacker and John Semper seem to assume that viewers have an understanding of DC characters that extends far beyond the current DC animated movie continuity, introducing Martian Manhunter (Ike Amadi), Vixen (Keesha Sharp) and Green Arrow (Jimmi Simpson) with relatively little explanation before sending John and Green Arrow into space to investigate what happened to Hal Jordan (Nolan North) and why their boss Ganthet (Jason J. Lewis) needed to personally deliver John's ring.
The investigation, which starts off satisfyingly twisted, places them in the middle of a war between the planets Thanagar and Rann, a retelling of a 2005 event by Dave Gibbons. This isn't the only extremely dense comic book event that the writers are trying to squeeze into a movie that's under 90 minutes, and it also seems to be setting the stage for a future metagene-focused plot. The overloaded storyline does John no favors, stealing the spotlight from him in favor of introducing a constant stream of new characters who have to awkwardly recite his backstories. Powerful comic book villains are reduced to nameless henchmen for the assembled heroes to fight or are too easily dispatched so the plot can quickly move on to the next phase of rapidly rising stakes.
Watch Green Lantern: Beware My Power 2022 Trailer
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