The Plot: What if Green Lantern, but True Detective, with liberal use of the F-word?
The Verdict: Strong central performances by Aaron Pierre, Kyle Chandler, and Kelly Macdonald can’t save this earthbound crime drama, which plays like one long flashback, with the occasional clunky costume to remind viewers of its comic book origins. Marooning John Stewart and Hal Jordan in Nebraska when they should be on Oa doesn’t help. I’d like it better if it were a buddy cop movie without the DC logo.
Co-creator Damon Lindelof has made a career out of playing in other people’s sandboxes. With Lanterns, he, Ozark showrunner Chris Mundy, and CIA-agent-turned-writer Tom King turn in a less successful adaptation than HBO’s Watchmen. The show’s plainclothes superhero sensibility harkens back to the 2000 X-Men film, as if the last 26 years hadn’t moved the genre forward (past the line, “What would you prefer? Yellow spandex?”) Its attempts at progressivism are admirable, but after reading about the racial dynamics on Lost in Maureen Ryan’s Burn It Down, it seems disingenuous to have them coming from a writers’ room led by three white men.
The show climaxes in episode 5 and then keeps going three more episodes. Along the way, it bends over backwards to explain why its Lanterns, Guardians, and Manhunters all look human. By the time we get to the finale, it’s sapped of all tension but still playing catch-up with backstories. What’s left is prestige trash—a smug Hollywood bastardization of the source material, without enough budget or imagination to do its IP justice.