Movie:The Green Hornet

The Green Hornet (2011)

The Green Hornet isn’t a bad movie, it just isn’t a particularly good one either. It has its moments, and it can be entertaining, but it is nothing you haven’t seen before many times, and odds are you will quickly forget everything about it as soon as your brain needs to make room for more important things, like what to buy at the grocery store.

 The Green Hornet is a decent movie that follows a pattern so closely that it becomes swallowed by it. The take on the deconstruction of the superhero is a fun idea, and the dynamic of Kato and the Green Hornet is interesting—if not all that surprising or original. The best thing this film has going for it is the potential that it could have in a future installment. Now that the obligatory origin story and bonding between Kato and Britt has been accomplished, a sequel could actually be fairly good.

The story of a man and his much cooler mechanic

Britt Reid (Rogen) is a spoiled brat, whose primary goal in life are partying and annoying his father, James Reid (Tom Wilkinson). James is a billionaire newspaper mogul in Los Angeles that fights corruption through his paper, while Britt parties into the night and frequently appears in his father’s paper, generally in a less than flattering light.

When James dies, Britt is faced with the prospects of running a newspaper empire that he neither wants, nor cares about. He soon meets his father’s old mechanic, Kato, and the two from an unlikely bond, fueled by the fact that neither has even begun to crack their potential. While Britt is intelligent but unmotivated, Kato is a gifted engineer and martial artist that does nothing with either ability.

After a drunken evening, the men head out into the city to cause trouble, but that is interrupted when Britt attempts to stop a mugging. He does so but badly, and Kato quickly comes to his rescue. Together the two relish the excitement of helping people, and Britt then has an idea.

Rather than fighting evil out of altruistic motives, revenge, or a feeling of responsibility, Britt and Kato decide to fight crime because they are bored and think it is fun. Britt decides that they should pose as villains and attack the city’s criminals, claiming to take over while secretly working their way up the underworld and identifying the main threats. It doesn’t take long before the run afoul of the city’s resident kingpin, Chudnofsky (played by Inglorious Basterd’s Christoph Waltz), and Britt and Kato are quickly in way over their heads.

If you don’t like Seth Rogan, if his brand of humor does not appeal to you, then go ahead and take a pass on The Green Hornet. The film is dominated by Rogan and his brand of humor, although much less than in his previous films. The film is a comedy that happens to feature action moments, rather than an action film with comedic elements. Sometimes that works for the movie, sometimes it doesn’t.

The Green Hornet is good for a mindless hour and a half of your time, even though a month from now you will probably have forgotten all about it.

Pros : Some truly funny moments. A wildly over the top, but entertaining final battle.

Cons An unoriginal plot.  Too much Britt, not enough Kato. Cameron Diaz is relegated to being a plot device.

Cast

• Seth Rogen as Britt Reid/The Green Hornet, a wealthy newspaper publisher who is secretly the masked crimefighter The Green Hornet.
• Jay Chou as Kato, a personal mechanic and martial arts expert who becomes the Green Hornet's valet and sidekick.
• Christoph Waltz as Benjamin Chudnofsky/Bloodnofsky, a paranoid Russian gangster who plans to join all of the crime families of Los Angeles together to organize a "super-mafia."
• Cameron Diaz as Lenore "Casey" Case, the love interest of Reid and Kato. She is also Reid's secretary for The Daily Sentinel
• Tom Wilkinson as James Reid, Britt's wealthy father and successful newspaper publisher
• Edward James Olmos as Mike Axford, the managing editor
• Edward Furlong as Tupper, the meth dealer
• Analeigh Tipton as Ana Lee
• David Harbour as D.A. Frank Scanlon
• James Franco cameos as the rival drug dealer Danny "Crystal" Clear