The Green Hornet

The Green Hornet has had a multitude of problems from the outset with a decade of director changes, actor changes, and script rewrites. So, after this decade of problems the Green Hornet has finally been slapped out with a whimper this January; the month known in Britain as a dumping ground of failed studio products and leftover prestige pictures. However, occasionally in January there is a gem, a, ‘Shutter Island’-like polished jewel that the studio, in its infinite stupidity, has failed to realise its potential. Is the Green Hornet one of those gems or just another January sale item that should be left on the shelf?

The movie follows Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) a mid-20’s playboy who, after his father’s (Tom Wilkinson) untimely death, becomes the heir of his father’s newspaper empire. He is soon paired with his father’s mechanic Kato (Jay Chou) who Reid describes as a, ‘a human Swiss army knife’, and they decide that after a life of wasted potential it is time to finally give back to his father and the general populace. Thus, he becomes the Green Hornet and in a master plan decides to pretend to be the bad guy in order to entice their prey towards them.

So, already this movie has all the standard tropes of a superhero movie. Firstly, a dead father that needs vengeance and whose virtuous memory guides our hero in his efforts to save the people. Secondly a genius sarcastic sidekick, thirdly an unrelenting megalomaniac villain (Christoph Waltz) and finally a saucy secretary (Cameron Diaz) who serves as the primary semi-love interest. I suppose this is why the script felt so flat to; the main plot points had been accomplished better in other superhero movies. This is not aided by the director Michel Gondry dragging the film through each plot point without ever spending enough time on development or allowing us time to gain our bearings with the characters.

Furthermore, this is demonstrated through the characterisation. Britt Reid, Rogen’s character, is prickly, arrogant and assholish, which is lacking in the dorky lovable loser charm that made his characters in past film classics. Any small support I gained for Britt is based off Rogen’s humour and himself rather than his character. In addition this, the bromance and off comedic timing from Chou doesn’t provide enough for Rogen to riff off. This creates an unconvincing relationship and some forced efforts at humour. Though, it must be said, the worst and most unconvincing relationship has to be given to Britt and his father (Tom Wilkinson). It seems a misuse of talent as Wilkinson shows up for what appears to be a five minute cameo where he shouts at his son for being useless while Rogen weakly protests. This unforgiving misuse of talent is a constant theme throughout the film, especially with Christoph Waltz as baddie Chudnofsky, who looks bored and doesn’t have anything to do. His character lacked the charm and insidiousness of his Hans Landa turn and is only relevant for his double barrel pistol and elongated screen time.

However, underneath stale humour and mundane storyline there are some interesting ideas and action set pieces, such as Kato vision, which is when Chou’s character’s heart beats faster and time slows down, allowing him lock and mark immediate threats then proceeding to batter the living shit of them. Although, this is eventually overused and nonsensical. At the end, it is an innovative mix of Predator lock on and Matrix’s bullet time. Generally, the action set pieces are well choreographed and are a nice mixture of visceral Bourne style close combat and Ong Bak acrobatics. The chase sequences won’t get your heart pumping a million beats a minute but they are well filmed and somewhat entertaining. The one thing you can’t say about Gondry’s filming style is that it’s insipid and boring to look at, as it has some nice shots and sequences. This is including the almost stop motion Rogen one night stand car hopping sequence at the start which is a sure nod to his prior Daft Punk Around the World video.

Therefore, although the Green Hornet is very flawed, as the script and much of the humour fall flat, it isn’t a terrible movie. It’s just thoroughly mediocre, and unsatisfying. If you want some brain-dead entertainment or if you need to kill some time, you could do worse.

However, at the current time of year there are many other Oscar nominee films that should firstly command your attention.