I sure hope that the new Green Hornet movie (not to be confused with next summer’s Green Lantern movie) was meant to be purely satirical, ‘cause otherwise, it’s just plain bad. And there’s absolutely no reason- I repeat, no reason – that this movie should be in 3D, unless you like to collect cheap glasses.
The movie stars Seth Rogen as Britt Reid, the good-for-nothing son of a prominent and well-respected media magnate (Tom Wilkinson) who dies under mysterious circumstances. His father’s untimely demise forces Britt to re-evaluate his directionless existence. He ends up befriending one of his father’s more inventive employees – a Jackie Chan/McGyver type named Kato (Jay Chou), and the two embark on a bizarre vigilante scheme: They will fight crime, by posing as criminals themselves. The pair don eye-masks and snappy threads and ride around in a pimped-out car, looking for criminal types – especially the brutal kingpin of the underworld, Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz). The Green Hornet and Kato don’t have any super powers, other than Kato’s martial arts expertise, which sometimes works in their favor – and other times, not so much. Cameron Diaz plays the token “sexy female assistant with brains”. You get the picture.
The movie opens with a cameo from the awesome James Franco. * SPOILER ALERT * Sadly, the demise of Franco’s character marks the beginning of the end of this movie. There are some funny moments as the film pokes fun at the whole superhero and buddy movie genres. But it never quite finds its own rhythm. Britt/Hornet is like a dim-witted Tony Stark/Iron Man, and Diaz is like an underdressed Pepper Potts. Kato is some weird combination of Alfred and Robin from Batman, Tonto from The Lone Ranger and Jackie Chan’s character from (fill in the blank).
The Green Hornet is touted as an action-comedy, and I suppose that’s really the only way to describe it. If you liked The Other Guys (with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg) a lot, then you might like The Green Hornet a little. The two share a certain tongue-in-cheek, ‘good guys causing mayhem in the name of justice’ kind of vibe. As for me, bring on The Green Lantern – and please, please, please, Ryan Reynolds – don’t let me down. After all, it’s not like The Green Hornet has set the bar very high for three-word superhero movies with ‘The’ and ‘Green’ in the title.
I suspect this film will do fine with the young roosters and HUGE in Asia where Jay Chou is a superstar. But I wonder when Cameron Diaz will cast herself in a good movie again. She seems to be picking losers one after another. Give that girl a good rom com.