Every once in a while a movie comes along that really inspires awe in the movie-goer. It’s fast paced, action packed and really loves to play with your nerves. It tugs at your heart strings and it even inspires you to do greater things with your life.
So what would you do if I told you Green Hornet does none of these things?
Don’t believe me? Check out the full review after the jump.
Plot…
The Green Hornet is, for lack of a better description, a superhero movie. Or it tries to be. The basic premise: a rich guy (Britt Reid – played by Seth Rogen) inherits a newspaper from his deceased father. He is depicted as a toy boy/womanizer, throwing money at everything. Sounds familiar right? Enter stage left Kato (Jay Chou), the guy who has been making coffee for him every morning/his father’s mechanic/a whole lot of other way cool, awesome, things.
One drunken evening they decide to do mischievous things and they end up saving a woman from being mugged. They like the idea of crime fighting so much that they decide to become superheroes. Britt’s money and Kato’s talent leads them to become some pretty awesome crime-fighters. The only catch is they want everyone else to think that they are really criminals fighting their way up the criminal food chain. Wacky right?
Now, armed to the teeth with a Chrysler Imperial called Black Beauty, they speed into the streets, stopping crime wherever they find it. That is, until they start pissing off the city’s crime lord, (with the almost impossible to pronounce name) Chudnofsky, who later renames himself Bloodnofsky. To further complicate things, Britt hires a new PA (Lenore Case – played by Cameron Diaz) at the newspaper and both of our heroes instantly falls in love with her. This leads to one of the most confused love triangles ever on the big screen. With a plot involving friendship, love, and politics, you can be sure that it will certainly be an interesting bit of time spent at the cinema.
Score…
The Green Hornet, from an audio standpoint is very sturdy, it does everything a superhero movie is supposed to do. It accentuates the good points and the bad points. The score was produced by Academy Award nominated and Emmy Award-winning composer James Newton Howard who also composed music for previous hits like I Am Legend, The Dark Knight, and The Last Airbender.
Cinematography…
One would expect a comedy of these proportions to be badly put together, but the film’s director, Michael Gondry certainly managed to pull off a technically sound movie. The camerawork is flawless and the stunt coordinator, Jeff Imada, certainly provided the film with some excellent fight scenes.
Acting…
Seth Rogen’s slapstick comedy style, reminiscent of his previous movies like Pineapple Express and Superbad, feels a bit out of place for a movie such as The Green Hornet. Then again, Rogen did write the role of Britt Reid. For me, Jay Chou carried this movie from beginning to end, with his insane martial arts style and funny dialog. One person who really messed up the movie was Cameron Diaz. It would seem the only reason she appeared in this movie was to lend the movie screen time from a much more famous actor than Seth Rogen or Jay Chou. Where she fails is in her cold and aloof approach to her character. I’ve never in my life seen someone force a performance like Diaz did in this role. At the end of the day, I think the story would have gone a lot smoother if she wasn’t in the movie at all. As much as I like her as an actress, she just did not do it for me in this adaptation. Christoph Waltz (from Inglorious Basterds fame) is the villain in this movie and in my opinion is a very likable character. He comes across as a bit weak in the sense that he seeks everyone’s approval, and Waltz portrays this quite well.
Ending…
All in all, Green Hornet is not the best superhero movie ever made, but it is certainly an entertaining one. It tends to drag out in the beginning and a bit in the middle, but fortunately it more than makes up for it with a stellar and action-packed ending. It leaves the door open for a possible sequel, but to be quite honest with you, I didn’t find the story engaging enough to want to see a sequel. Unless they seriously up the ante in a sequel, I would not spend money on watching it.
Here is a short preview trailer for people interested in watching this film
Score: 6/10