Review: Green Lantern: Emerald Knights

            Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is the latest DCU animated movie to be released on DVD.  The DCU animated movies have been quite good for the most part, so will Emerald Knights be able to live up to the high expectations I have for it.  Well we are about to find out.

            The movie is a collection of six small stories, five of which are stringed together while the other is going on.  The main story is that a being called Krona who was once banished to the Anti-Matter Universe by the Guardians is about to return and try to destroy Oa, the Green Lantern headquarters.  So the Green Lanterns gather to set up a perimeter and monitor their sun because that is where Krona will come from.  While they are waiting Hal Jordan recounts some stories of the Green Lantern Corps to their newest recruit Arisia Rrab.  It seemed a little out of place to have story time while everyone is bracing for what is expected to be one of the Green Lantern Corps’ biggest battles ever.  I think it would have worked a lot better if they had shown Arisia as a more frightened and overwhelmed recruit so that Hal could tell her the stories in order to explain through examples that the Green Lanterns always rise to the challenge and overcome whatever fear may be plaguing them.  However it just sort of played out as “Hey did you hear the one about ____” which just weekend the main story because it seemed like they weren’t taking it as seriously as they should have.  The five stories that are told however aren’t actually that bad.  The first is the story of the first Green Lantern and how he overcame his fears and defeated a seemingly indestructible army.  The second story is about Kilowog’s training from Sgt. Deegan which shows where he learned his harsh training style.  The next story is about Laira and how in her first solo mission she had to fight her own family who had begun leading a murderous campaign against all who once opposed their world.  This was my favourite of Hal’s stories because it had cool action as well as an emotional aspect to it thanks to Laira and her father.  The fourth story is about a Lantern named Mogo.  This story is the least serious of the bunch since for a large portion of the story Bolphunga (the bad guy) is just running around a forest looking for Mogo without any luck.  The final side story is about Abin Sur, the Lantern that previously held Hal’s ring.  In it Abin Sur is attacked by someone named Atrocitus who can apparently talk to Destiny itself and who then tells Abin about what will happen in the future.  Then after all of the tales are told Krona appears and engages in a climactic battle with the core.

            The acting in the movie is decent nothing exceptional to get excited about.  Hal Jordan is voiced by Nathan Fillion who does a good job as Hal but doesn’t have any real standout moments.  Elisabeth Moss fits quite well as Arisia Rrab but like just about everyone in this film doesn’t get to show any range thanks to the unimpressive writing and fact that the story is told in a bunch of smaller pieces.  The performances by Kelly Hu as Laira and Tony Amendola as Kentor Omoto (Laira’s father) are in my opinion the best in the film.  They both make you feel for their characters despite the fact that they are only in for one section of the film and they are on opposite sides.  The action in the film is a little better than the acting but not by much.  It is always cool to see the Green Lanterns use their rings but it’s all over so quickly it lacks suspense and/or tension.  The end does have a big battle however which was actually pretty cool.

            Green Lantern: Emerald Knights isn’t a bad movie, it just lacks substance and fails to live up to the expectations set forth by the previous Green Lantern animated film; First Flight.  The performances and action scenes are fine but you should only see this movie if you are a fan of Green Lantern.  For everyone else checkout First Flight because that movie can actually turn you into a fan.

Score: 2/5

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Weekly Wrap Up

THQ closes studios and franchises

            THQ has been losing money recently and in an attempt to fix their money problems and restore profits they have closed two of their development studios.  The first is Blue Tongue which has made 13 games in its history most of which were license games, but there most notable games are probably de Blob 1&2.  Next on the chopping block was THQ Studio Australia which had made 8 games all of which were licence games, the most well known of which (thanks to achievement whores) might just be one of their worst; Avatar: The Burning Earth.  200 hundred employees lost their jobs thanks to THQ’s new strategy which involves staying far away from licence games and focusing on whatever will make them more money.  This means that they have now discontinued the MX vs. ATV and Red Faction series due to poor sales on their latest instalments along with two unknown projects.  Instead they will turn their attention to more “profitable” franchises such as Saints Row and Warhammer which both have upcoming games this fall.  Also they believe that their upcoming Facebook game Margaritaville will lead to a lot of profit through micro-transactions which is something I’m not very fond of.  The real question is will this change up work out for THQ in the long run or will we see more changes down the line?       

Assassin’s Creed Revelations will have a beta

            That’s right starting September 3^rd Revelations will have a multiplayer beta running until the 11^th.  Unfortunately it will only be available for those with a PS3 and a PlayStation Plus account.  Personally I don’t see why Ubisoft would only do a beta on the PS3 since they will be releasing on the 360 and PC as well and they should check the servers for all of them.  Plus the majority of multiplatform games sell slightly better on the 360 which means that they are testing out on the second biggest audience and limiting it to only a fraction of said audience by making it exclusive for Plus members.  So do they want to gather the attention from a beta but don’t want most of their fans to play it because they feel that they won’t buy the game if they already played it?  Because that is the exact opposite of how betas work, you want as many people as possible to test the servers, find the bugs and give you crucial feedback on how to improve the experience.  When you play a portion of a good game you want more especially if you only played a secondary component like the multiplayer in Assassin’s Creed, since the focus is story in those games.  Or perhaps Sony is just offering them money to have a beta only for those who pay so that more people see the perks of PS Plus and want to join raking in a lot of cash for Sony.   

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

            This is the brand new Counter-Strike game that will be coming to XBLA, PSN and PC early next year.  It is being designed from the ground up with a new engine and a bunch of tweaks and improvements, as well as some redesigned maps.  I know that Counter-Strike is still very popular on PCs but I don’t know how successful it will be on the consoles compared to the other modern day set shooters coming out at the end of the year like MW3 and Battlefield 3 which many people will still be playing by early next year.  I do like that it will be an arcade game since it is multiplayer only, so it will probably only cost around 1200MP or 15 bucks US.  What I want to know is since so many players on the PC have stuck with these games in the past, will they move on to Global Offensive or just stick with what they know?      

New Arkham City trailer anyone?

            The latest Arkham trailer is devoted to yet another classic Batman villain who will make his chilling debut in what is shaping up to be one of my most eagerly anticipated games of the year.  Mr. Freeze is here and he seems like he has a pretty interesting story going on in the game.  I love how many villains are in this game and how they are making them fit and keeping them true to their characters at the same time.  As opposed to just throwing them in as random boss fights that have nothing to do with the real story just to fill space.  Every villain seems to have his own chapter or section of the game that will be fleshed out and different from the rest to keep things fresh.  The trailer is linked below.   

http://www.ign.com/videos/2011/08/15/batman-arkham-city-mr-freeze-trailer

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