Green Hornet – Movie Review

By: Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg (writers), Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz, Cameron Diaz (starring), Michel Gondry (director)

The Story: With too much money and time on his hands, and not enough thrills, millionaire Britt Reid enlists the help of martial artist/genius/tech wiz/coffee maker Kato to take down LA’s biggest criminals under the guise of the Green Hornet.

SPOILER ALERT

The Review: From the beginning, it’s clear that Green Hornet is a mixed bag.  Story-wise, it adapts some of the elements of Kevin Smith’s comic miniseries by setting the period in the present and as the basis for Britt Reid’s character.  But the rest of the movie seems to be largely Rogen’s creation, resulting in the movie being deluged with the in-your-face kind of humor that Rogen and his “Frat Pack” contemporaries.  As a result, Green Hornet really ends up a comedy film with masked vigilantes, rather than the other way around.

The action sequences are pretty glorious.  Most of it involves the heroes’ favorite transport, the imaginatively armed Black Beauty, which should receive its own credit for all the screen time it gets.  The impeccable Kato serves up nearly all the coolest bits—so much so, that by the end of the movie, you’re left wondering what the point of even including Britt Reid was all about.  He literally ends up doing nothing in the movie.  Even at the final showdown between the wannabe heroes and villains, Reid screws up the biggest task he takes on.  Sure, the villains get their comeuppance in the end, but justice doesn’t really get served.  I suppose that’s material for the sequel to tackle.