'Lanterns' review: Sometimes not so easy being green

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Intergalactic cop, and Green Lantern, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), is forced to work with a new recruit, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre, "Rebel Ridge"). Both head to Nebraska, where an alien invasion may be imminent. This eight-parter is based on the 1940 DC Comics, and the later version from 1959, when Jordan was introduced as the first Green Lantern from Earth. Stewart was introduced in 1971, as DC's first Black superhero. Another famous Lantern, Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion, who arrives in the sixth episode) is here too. For his superpowers, Jordan has a magic green ring that he plugs into a lantern to recharge.

MY SAY So let’s rack ‘em up. A grizzled cop and his new apprentice. A looming threat. The rookie has to learn the ropes fast. There's tension, quips, more tension, more quips. Long drives on dark nights. Lots of bro banter. The bromance grows. The threat looms larger ...

If all this sounds familiar then well it should — a trope as old as the hills, or at least as old as "Training Day" and "Men in Black." HBO probably wants you to think "True Detective," and that works just fine too.

There's nothing wrong with this. Tropes get old because they're sturdy and reliable, but they do require a fresh coat of paint. The paint color here is green — emerald magic dust, generated by an emerald ring, this magic limited only by the imagination of the cop wearing the ring. This ring can take someone to the far ends of the galaxy, or create a cup of coffee. Still getting his ring bearings, Stewart creates a humble (green) song bird. Less artistically inclined, Jordan typically uses it as a bulletproof vest, or a fast ride to a distant planet.

Rings in comics, literature and the movies do tend to be charged subjects — "I wished the ring had never come to me," per Frodo — and the same ring-thing here. Bound by family and intergalactic obligations, Stewart is conflicted about this commitment forced on him since birth. There's no such conflict with Jordan. Like Gollum, he can't bear to part with his green "precious." If someone wants to take it from him, they'll have to pull it off his cold dead finger.

That's the fundamental tension of "Lanterns," also the driving, irresolute narrative force. Who wants the ring? Who deserves the ring? The battered has-been, or young ex-Marine? There's a familiar generational tension too — the old guy who refuses to retire, the other who wonders whether he wants the dumb job anyway.

Because this is the most important new HBO series of the year, or at least until "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" arrives in December, the showrunners have gone to considerable lengths to make "Lanterns" comprehensible. They've distanced themselves from the deep mythology of the comics, at least in the early episodes, and even stripped the word "Green" from the title. (A "stupid" word, explained co-showrunner Damon Lindelof in a 2024 podcast; after Green Lantern fans howled, he apologized.)

Mostly they don't want anyone to remember the 2011 big screen dud "Green Lantern." Remember? Star Ryan Reynolds wore a CGI superhero suit that made him look like Kermit the Frog, with pecs. Hal Jordan's looks like something he picked up at a superhero thrift shop.

"Lanterns" is obviously better (how could it be otherwise?) but the tone is still wildly uneven. Chandler is great here — always is — but the show can't decide what to be. At turns sour and embittered, other times bemused, "Lanterns" simply refuses to have much fun.

BOTTOM LINE Not a bummer, but too often a downer.