Sometimes part of being a reviewer is enjoying a movie more than the typical viewer. Time to dive in on Beware my Power.
Green Lantern is one of my favorite heroes, and thanks to the cartoon Justice League Unlimited John was my favorite, even though I now rank him as 6th of 8, since his show version is much more like Hal than his bland comic interpretation. Thus I was mixed when I heard John would be the protagonist in a story clearly highly inspired by Kyle, and indeed this could have been Kyle. Instead it was a version mostly based off his show version with a large ensemble cast of new characters for this movie universe.
This movie is part of “The Tomorrowverse,” and it really jumps right into the Justice League. In between movies it was formed, and they have complex relationships, so apparently there is a significant time skip (or Hal and Ollie were already friends before joining so just a small time skip). I think that last piece should explain that this is a terrible introduction for non-comic fans. They should just watch either The Animated Series or First Flight instead.
John Stewart like in the show was a marine, but now he has guilt from killing people and bad PTSD from it. His life is in ruins. In the show it was once mentioned he was struggling financially (based on the episode “The Brave and the Bold” he was exaggerating, as he at least has emergency savings and these episodes had the same script writer). Here he is broken emotionally. Thankfully both versions avert “The Stoic Black Man trope.” I maintain avoiding that was a key reason he stuck out in the show.
In a mix of Kyle and Hal’s backstory a space ship crashes with a dead guardian, and the ring chooses John. Probably because he hates it bossing him around he wants the ring off, but it will not let him. Now contrary to what the star of Blue Beetle said it is nothing new for a superhero to not want to be one. What makes this version unique is that normally means the hero does not want this adventurous life. Here it means he has already had one, and he just wants to move on.
It takes him to the watchtower where they discover it was Hal’s ring (meaning Hal should be dead) and the Guardians have not talked to them for a year. Now as a Green Lantern fan I knew to expect they were adapting Hal being evil, but them throwing a curveball and just killing him is not far fetched. Hal has two wonderful storylines where he comes back from the dead, and both options lead them open to future movies, and they can both make this movie good.
The only Justice League member important this movie is Green Arrow, Ollie. He decides to use the ship to go to Oa and annoy the Guardians into talking and finding out what happened to his best friend. John insists on going with him to remove the Ring. He very smugly shows and tells him how to be a lantern.
He has to teach him The Green Lantern oath, and John openly criticizes the best superhero oath ever written. At first I was annoyed by this thinking it is the overly common “That just happened humor,” but later in the movie he learns what it truly means, that he has not done enough and must always fight evil.
This is a great image. It completely dwarves the characters and other statues. Foreshadowing what will happen it is missing the lantern instead of limbs like the other statues. It shows how highly admired Hal is even without the hologram declaring him the best Green Lantern in the universe. The statues also introduce us to Sinestro.
They get attacked by Hawkgirl, and John nearly loses it and kills her. This movie has lots of mystery backstory, and she gives the key details on the Rann-Thanagarian War. The Rannians have a Zeta Beam which acts as a teleporter. They were going to connect it to Thanagar, as Hal watched over the project. Something went wrong, and it teleported Thanagar into Rann’s atmosphere killing millions and putting them at war. She is convinced this was all treachery by Rann (her being blood thirsty before reason is a key part of her character). The best part is Hal sacrificing himself in an attempt to save everyone. A great scene from one of my favorite heroes, that makes me hope they get to Green Lantern Rebirth.
They find many dead Thanagarians, and a Zeta Beam teleports Adam Strange there. He and Hawkgirl fight on sight. I did not expect this at all, but my favorite character is Adam Strange. I have read a few comics with him, and they all stank, and he was not very interesting in any of them. Adam Strange in-universe is an old legend thought to be long dead, and he finally found his way back. I know he has a family, and in a rare case of being new viewer friendly they keep that detail hidden for a while.
They go past many dead Rannians, and into a giant space battle, and they talk to an injured Rannian captain in a doomed ship. He tells them about how Thanagar attacked Rann making it pretty obvious to both the audience and characters a third party is manipulating everybody. In probably the best scene in the movie he cons John into repowering his ship so he can go home, but instead he uses it to kamikaze into the Thanagarians. Hawkgirl calls him “noble” for it and is now respectful of the Rannians. With this new information Hawkgirl and Adam now get along and work together to figure out what is going on.
They see Adam’s father-in-law made a weapon to destroy Thanagar and that Sinestro has made a cruiser than can be disguised as a Rannian or Thanagarian cruiser.
This leads to a fight with The Sinestro corp. It is a good battle with plenty of back and forths and cool visuals, and it starts their killing message. The characters preach not killing, but the movie actually favors killing. Not killing Despero gets them captured, and Sinestro ruins the mood due to…
What is with that design? How did anybody ever trust him with a name like “Sinestro” and an obviously evil design like that?
In what should be a sign that Hal is actually Sinestro’s boss they are thrown in the same dungeon as him. He is good at pretending to be good, as he praises them, and he comes off as humble and praising his replacement. He says he released his ring do Sinestro could not steal it.
Hal gets them out, liberates their weapons, and he kills a Sinestro Corps member. He syas the lives at stake and being stuck in a prison made him willing to kill.
Whenever John loses his ring his costume goes changing his outfit. It is a nice detail to show his control, as his costume is clean and well kept, while his lone jacket is destroyed and in tatters (granted there are plenty of continuity mistakes here that get distracting).
Adam talks to his father in law about the weapon, and it gets into Justice vs Revenge. Adam’s wife and the scientist’s daughter was killed by Thanagarians in the last war. Adam wants to honor her memory thinking she would not want Thanagarians to be killed like her. His father-in-law wants to make them suffer for it. Nobody convinces the other one, nor are we ever shown what Alanna Strange would actually want, because it does not matter. What matters is not letting your morals get corrupted from tragedy.
They fight the Yellow Lanterns again, and John uses what Hal taught him to kill Sinestro. It is not played for coolness, but horror, as he hates having to do this, but it was the only way he could save himself. With what they were doing to Hal, I think this was also the creators throwing Hal’s fans a bone.
Like in Emerald Twilight Hal is now Parallax, influenced or possessed (this version is not clear which one), and is now evil and slaughtered The Green Lantern corp. I like the detail that Sinestro is just terrified of him now.
Hal is going to use the Zeta Beam to destroy the universe and remake it. Unlike the comics where he was doing that I have to give this credit for making him actually the main threat the whole time. In the comics he only did anything after Extant did 90% of the work. He fights John, and overall it is underwhelming. Hal comes off less as a god and more like a slightly more powerful Lantern, and there is no way John should even be able to compete with him. On the other hand him reciting the oath while willing the rings away was pretty cool. Hal catches second win, but before he can kill John his best friend kills him.
Did we see enough of Ollie and Hal’s best friendship to earn this scene. I think so. Just the horror Ollie had when seeing what happened, their brief interactions, and how Ollie described him did scream how close they were. Also if you need best friends to spend hours and hours on screen together then a direct-to-video movie is not for you anyway.
To stop the Zeta Beam from destroying the universe Adam sacrifices himself ending the war too.
I give this movie four Tree Stars. It has so much going on with many characters I did not expect to see in an animated DC movie. Hopefully this gets built on later. The Tomorrowverse has plenty going for it.
Sorry this took so long. I have been moderatly sick for a while, and this was a hard one to write. For Christmas season I am doing The Legend of Frosty the Snowman, and The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.
The Animation Historian 