Review #1: "The Green Hornet"

The Green Hornet, directed by Michael Gondry and written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg is about Britt Reid, son of a newspaper millionaire. He squanders his life away, abusing his father's money and acting as the usual pre-superhero millionaire does. It's only after he learns of his father's death that he's inspired to doing something with his life. So begins the life of the Green Hornet.

The film stars Seth Rogen as Reid and Jay Chou as Kato. Both do excellent jobs playing their characters, with Chou having most of the fun. Rogen easily portrays Reid's pigheadedness while occasionally showing a different side to the character, the one that genuinely wants to help people. Chou does his best not to be Bruce Lee, but it's tough to live up to such an icon (especially when the film makes a nod to him). Even so, he kicks plenty of ass and usually has the best lines in the scene.

In fact, most of the actors do at least a serviceable job in their role. Christoph Waltz, who I loved so dearly in Inglourious Basterds plays Chudnofky, the barebones villain of the movie. Waltz is just fine in the role, but he has so few scenes in the film that he's barely noticeable in the grand scheme of things. James Franco makes an amazing cameo in the beginning of the film, and Edward James Olmos has a few decent scenes as a supporting employee of the newspaper company. The worst of the bunch comes from Diaz. Her scenes are by far the campiest in the entire movie. She also has a tendency to overact in them along with having this glazed look on her face whenever she talks.


While the story in The Green Hornet won't win any awards, it's well paced enough to keep your interest in between action scenes. The structure is very similar to that of Iron Man where the protagonist is a jerky rich dude who doesn't try and better himself until he nearly dies or someone close to him actually does. From there he becomes a hero and defeats the villain. Now does that mean The Green Hornet is as good as Iron Man? Certainly not. Iron Man had a better villain and overall better acting. The film also had an identity problem. There were moments of total superhero camp that worked well, but there are also very serious moments in the movie. It has no idea whether it wants to be the old 60's Batman TV show or The Dark Knight.

The action is the highlight of Hornet though. Each scene is different enough that it doesn't seem like the movie is repeating itself. Nine out of ten times the funniest moments also take place during these action scenes. Kato kicks plenty of ass in slow-motion fashion and the Black Beauty gets plenty of camera action on its own. Overall the action in the film is pretty much the best reason to go see the movie.

I saw the film in 3D and a warning to all of you: it's not worth it. Not only is the 3D barely noticeable, it's cheaper to go standard and you won't be missing a thing.


The Green Hornet does a decent job of avoiding that line of being totally ridiculous and manages to string together a decent enough story to get you through to the next big set piece without falling asleep in between.