The Green Hornet
DIRECTOR: Michel Gondry, WRITTEN BY: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg & George W. Trendle (Radio Series), STARRING: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Cameron Diaz, Tom Wilkinson & Christoph Waltz, GENRE: Action/Comedy/Crime, RUN TIME: 119 Minutes, RELEASE: 2011.
SYNOPSIS: Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) is a slacker by day, party animal by night... until he finds a serious career that's seriously cool: crime-fighting action hero. As the Green Hornet, he teams up with gadget wiz and martial arts master Kato (Jay Chou) to take down LA's underworld. Even Britt's assistant Lenore (Cameron Diaz) doesn't suspect this mismatched pair is the masked duo busting the city's toughest thugs led by Chudnofsky (Academy Award® winner Christoph Waltz, 2010, Supporting Actor, Inglourious Basterds). With style, swagger and an arsenal of awesome gear, the Green Hornet and Kato are doing justice their way, making every mission a mix of over-the-top action and outrageous comedy ~ Sony Pictures.
Based on George W. Trendle's 1936 radio program of the same name, the vigilante crime fighter, Green Hornet (who outwardly portrays himself as a criminal, whilst helping people by using his law-breaking persona to infiltrate and take down underworld organisations), has always been one of my favourite 'hero' creations. There is just so much coolness about it; the completely understated 'costume', which pretty much just comprises of a typical 30's sharp suit and trenchcoat, with the trademark green Fedora (how cool) and mask, the technically awesome hornet-mobile (pretty sure I just made that up) 'Black Beauty', the wonderful gadgets and, of course, arse-kicking Kato.
There have been several adaptations over the years since it first broke out on the radio including the two film serials The Green Hornet (1940) and The Green Hornet Strikes Again (1941). Then of course there was the 1966-1967 TV Series starring Van Williams and that little known martial star Bruce Lee ( I think that was his name). These were all pretty great adaptations.
And then some genius thought it would be a great idea to let Seth Rogen get his hands on it. Urgh!
Overall, The Green Hornet received negative feedback, with Rotten Tomatoes certifying the film 43% fresh and the critics’ consensus stating that 'It's sporadically entertaining, but The Green Hornet never approaches the surreal heights suggested by a Michel Gondry/Seth Rogen collaboration.' Sporadically entertaining is a fair enough description, but how they amused that it could ever reach 'surreal heights' with Rogen's involvement is simply beyond my understanding. Metacritic gave the film and overall score of 39, with generally unfavourable reviews.
So let's start with the good points. It does have its small share of entertaining moments, I mean, they are there, just pretty few and far between. The film looks pretty sleek at some points and the 'Black Beauty' is pretty damn sexy. It's up there with Michael Knight's K.I.T.T and 'Danno's Chevrolet Camaro in CBS' hit series Hawaii Five-0 as three of my favourite cars. Jay Chou gives a fine performance as Kato and to be honest, he's easily the best actor and most likeable character in the whole damn film. He's quiet, cool and engaging in every scene. Now, Christoph Waltz is a great actor, there is absolutely no denying that and for a very short while I liked his character too, but it isn't long before you lose interest in his bland and clichéd character. Considering that he is supposed to be the films main antagonist, he soon becomes forgettable and irrelevant. Another good thing about The Green Hornet is...oh, nope! That's all of it. And even that was being fairly generous.
On speaking about the disappointment of the film's lack of success back in 2013, Seth Rogan had this to say:
“While we were making it, it was a fucking nightmare. And Gondry, the director, is wonderful at smaller scale stuff but I think he did not mesh well with a blockbuster film. It was his first movie with more than a $20 million dollar budget and this was $120 million dollar budget. And we had never made an action movie, he had never made an action movie. And if there is one thing I look back on like, ‘What was the problem there?’ It was just the budget. We can’t make a really edgy fun movie for our types of people for that amount of money. There’s just too much skepticism that it draws. ‘Mo money, ‘mo problems. You can’t take risks, the studio wouldn’t let us take risks anyway. And that makes it very hard to make a movie that’s exciting.”
That's all very well admitting to and excepting that the film was a total failure, but to be honest, it could have had all the money in the world, the best crew behind it and all the time they needed to put it together, but it would still have Seth Rogen's irritating and thoroughly irritating stamp on it. He's just not the right actor to portray a character of such coolness. His take on the rich, care-free bachelor was just way over-the-top and every single scene that he was in only succeeded in angering me that much more than the previous one. For me, this is one of the worst casting decisions that I have had the displeasure of viewing. I can only imagine that he wrote all his own scenes and found them quite hilarious They were not. If only Kato hadn't intervened and had let him get his arse kicked, but alas, that never happened. Much to my disappointment.
Overall, The Green Hornet is a terribly executed bromance film that pisses all over a classic heroic creation. It serves only as a time filler if you literally have nothing better to do and want to pass the time while you're waiting for you chicken to cook in the oven. With such a wealth of talented actors, directors, writers etc. out there, the potential that this film had could have been so much greater. Unfortunately the end result was just an awful action 'comedy' that failed to deliver any of the charm and faithfulness that the Green Hornet deserves. I'm pretty sure that George had a restless night in his grave the day that this abomination premièred. Maybe someone will come along in due time and deliver us a respectable adaptation of it. Just don't go looking for that in this one.