Lanterns’ Review: Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre’s Chemistry Helps HBO’s Clever Action-Comedy Transcend Lackluster Superhero… — The Hollywood Reporter

RESOLVING THE LEDGER

Logo text Jack Reacher, protagonist of books by Lee Child and an ongoing Amazon drama , has several characteristics integral to his Jack Reacher-ness.

Of primary importance to Child's readers, Jack Reacher is gigantic. If Jack Reacher isn't 6'5″ and 250 pounds, he might as well be Tom Cruise in a muscle car , because he sure isn't Jack Reacher. Lanterns The Bottom Line Even in its uneven moments, the stars shine. Airdate: 9 p.m. Sunday, August 16 (HBO) Cast: Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald Creators: Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King

Of subtler importance, albeit more complicated to discuss, is Jack Reacher's whiteness. Reacher is a behemoth who strolls into towns in the South and the American heartland. He's a vagrant who picks fights in public places, undermines law enforcement, beds random women and refuses to leave before unraveling mid-level conspiracies. Many, if not all, of Jack Reacher's adventures would play out wildly differently if he were a 6'5″, 250-pound man of color. Related Stories TV 'Lanterns' Trailer Reveals Sinestro and Its Manhunter Threat as Aaron Pierre Wins Over Comic-Con TV 'Lanterns' Gets Premiere Date, Illuminating New Trailer

HBO's Lanterns has DC Comics roots and some moments of effects-driven superhero bombast. But, as adapted by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King, what it feels like is a Jack Reacher story with Aaron Pierre as the swaggering, oversized outsider who strolls into a small Nebraska town, undermines law enforcement, beds random women and refuses to leave before unraveling a mid-level conspiracy. Yes, he's accompanied by a partner and, yes, there's a bulky ring that can be used to manifest an assortment of wondrous and less-than-wondrous things. But as depicted here, Pierre's John Stewart offers a small glimpse of what would happen if Jack Reacher were a towering Black man. And if there were aliens.

Since Lanterns just so happens to be premiering opposite the new season of Reacher , it's easy to acknowledge that Lanterns is smarter, better-acted and just plain better than any season of Reacher to date. At the same time, Lanterns comes with a set of expectations that will never burden Reacher , an extended B-movie of a TV series adapted from a potboiler run of airplane novels.

With Lindelof as a key piece of its pedigree, Lanterns invariably has to be compared to Watchmen , a spectacular superhero non-adaptation that combined conventional genre thrills with a rich socially conscious undercurrent that launched a million "Was the Tulsa Massacre Real?" Google searches.

The text and subtext of Lanterns aren't woven together as consistently as in Watchmen , and viewers tuning in with a particular interest in it being a comic book blockbuster are likely to be at least a little underwhelmed.

Still, based on the seven episodes sent to critics (out of eight total), Lanterns has a lot to recommend it — particularly the prickly chemistry between Pierre and Kyle Chandler , a top-notch supporting ensemble led by Kelly Macdonald , Poorna Jagannathan and Garret Dillahunt, and enough engaging ideas to make up for the spectacle that's occasionally lacking.

The series starts in 1996 with a 60 Minutes episode introducing the world to Hal Jordan (Chandler), the formerly masked hero protecting the Earth as part of the organization of intergalactic cops known as the Green Lantern Corps. Jordan is a former test pilot and the first human to wield the Green Lantern ring, a responsibility he received largely by virtue of giving the correct answer to the query, "Are you afraid?" ("No" is the correct answer.)

The interview is being watched by young John Stewart, whose father (J. Alphonse Nicholson) and mother (Jasmine Cephas Jones) have Green Lantern Corps aspirations for him.

20 years later, John (Pierre) is serving as an apprentice to an older, grouchier Hal. It is not a particularly warm relationship, in part because Hal knows that the only way for John to become Green Lantern is through Hal's retirement or death, and Hal has no intention of retiring. As a result, despite having been paired together for years, very little mentoring has occurred.

Through a very peculiar source, John and Hal learn that they're needed in a small Nebraska town. Hal takes flight to the destination using the power of the ring, leaving John to fly coach.

In Rushville, Hal and John learn about the death of what appear to be victims of a mass shooting, but the civilians are actually aliens and one of the bystanders is of extraterrestrial origin as well, with a nefarious agenda.

Although John and Hal (or at least Hal) have expertise in these matters, the town sheriff (Macdonald's Kerry) isn't eager to give up her jurisdiction. She claims it's because she doesn't want to freak out the populace, but there's a reason that the aliens are in Rushville and there are places Kerry doesn't want these interlopers poking around.

One of those places is the vast ranch owned by her father-in-law (Dillahunt's Will Macon), so it's a bit peculiar when Macon invites Hal and John to a BBQ on the ranch. Macon, it turns out, is an Earth First nativist, with militia tendencies, which would seem to put him on the same side as our planetary protectors. But perhaps there's more afoot.

I'm not sure if there's any single Jack Reacher book in which Reacher arrives in a Midwestern town and finds a nativist cult with militia tendencies or if it's two books that I'm combining in my head, but almost beat-by-beat, the things Hal and John encounter in Rushville match that vibe — from the tense scenes in the local cafe, to potential brawls at dingy watering holes, to threatening mobs in pickup trucks, to John's fast-moving flirtations with the mysterious Zoe (Jagannathan), drawn to the very large man either because he's big enough to have his own gravitational pull or for other reasons. (Yes, this is also the basic plot of a dozen John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Japanese ronin movies that in...

Lanterns’ Review: Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre’s Chemistry Helps HBO’s Clever Action-Comedy Transcend Lackluster Superhero… — The Hollywood Reporter | AIPROPX