‘Lanterns’ Proves There Can Be A Brightest Day For DC (Review)

Hal Jordan and John Stewart officially make their debut in the new DCU in HBO’s Lanterns. Some fans have been clamoring to see their favorite heroes on screen while others have been proceeding with caution. Now, we have a chance to review some episodes of Lanterns early for our readers.

This spoiler-free review of Lanterns is based on the first four episodes of the series.

Lanterns follows Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and his trainee John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) as they unravel an extraterrestrial mystery unfolding in the town of Rushville, Nebraska. Coming into this series I’ve personally been pretty low overall on the DCU between a soulless Supergirl film, to an underwhelming Superman movie (my opinion), and a lackluster Peacemaker finale.

Suffice to say I was pleasantly surprised and relieved by this breath of fresh air that is Lanterns.

At its core the show has a very strong central mystery that pulls you in from the get go. This bolstered by ironclad performances from Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre make for a great watch. Some fans of the comic characters though may not be as high on the often outwardly antagonistic dynamic of the two leads, but things like that are easy to look past when the writing and performances are just that solid.

The power usage has also been a point of contention online among fans, but rest assured they do indeed use their powers decently often. This show feels like a pretty good halfway point between a grounded True Detective pastiche and a true green comic book project, which fills a pretty unique niche that no other DC or Marvel show has really provided this decade. 

That’s not to say the show isn’t without its flaws entirely. The biggest knock against this really is that some of the side characters can feel a bit one note or not ingrained into the narrative as well as others. Kelly Macdonald as Sheriff Kerry is probably the only auxiliary character that I find to be decently well rounded. On a visual front the show is about the expected quality from HBO. The VFX here is all very strong and the constructs actually feel somewhat tangible (unlike the last time the DCU had a Green Lantern on screen). 

I’m keeping this review brief as the show is a touch difficult to discuss without getting into the nitty gritty with spoilers, but overall I found Lanterns to be a very welcome surprise after a rather disappointing and underwhelming marketing campaign and launch of the DCU. The show isn’t perfect obviously but it easily is my favorite project coming out of this new DCU experiment. If James Gunn and crew can keep this quality up for the next few projects, they may be able to right this ship.

Lanterns is created by Damon Lindelof, Tom King, and Chris Mundy. The series stars Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre as Hal Jordan and John Stewart respectively. The series will premiere on HBO and HBO Max on Sunday, August 16th at 6 PM PT.

Thanks for reading this review of Lanterns! If you liked this article make sure to check out more reviews here at Feature First.