Lanterns Review

Fifteen years after the Ryan Reynolds film, HBO takes the character back down to earth and makes a crime story out of him. Two Green Lanterns, a veteran and a rookie, are assigned to a rural stretch of northwest Nebraska and catch a murder, and for long stretches the series plays as a procedural that happens to have a power ring in the glovebox. Critics have been close to unanimous by count, better than nine in ten favourable across a large sample, though the aggregate that weights the write ups rather than counting them is markedly cooler and lands at no better than generally favourable.

The reservations sit almost entirely on the premiere, which crams a mythology, a killing, two timelines and half a dozen supporting players into a single hour. Kyle Chandler is the correct Hal Jordan, worn and unimpressed by his own legend, and Aaron Pierre plays John Stewart with a stillness that makes the eventual violence register. Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner is the comic pressure valve, Ulrich Thomsen's Sinestro the one real concession to space opera.

The exteriors are built practically rather than digitally, dust and interstates instead of green screen. The run finishes in early October, so the ending cannot be graded yet. Everything before it is the best live action use of this character to date.