The Green Hornet

Honestly, I don't really like Seth Rogen as a main character. He's fine as a supporting character, but when he's a main character I usually just want to punch him in the face. Despite that, I didn't hate him in The Green Hornet and the movie isn't as crap as everyone else has led you to believe.

Seth Rogen plays Brit Reid, son to newspaper mogul James Reid. Brit has grown up into a mooching-off-his-dad's-exorbitant-wealth party boy while his dad spends his time being the only truthful newspaper in town. And it's not his fault because James was a pretty mean dad. But eventually James dies of a bee sting. Brit is left with all this wealth, a sweet mansion, 50 cars worth more than my house and an extreme hatred for all the people who didn't know his dad was kind of a douche. Enter Kato (Jay Chou), James' old handyman who admits to Brit that yeah, his dad was kind of a dick. They hatch a genius plan to cut off the head of the newly erected statue of James Reid. But daring their nefarious heist, Brit witnesses a young couple being assaulted. He tries to intervene and gets his buttkicked. Kato runs in with his awesomee martial arts skills and drops everyone like flies. They almost get caught by the cops and seeing as their still criminals, Brit suggests that he and Kato become superheroes with a twist. They pretend to be bad guys so they can get in bed with criminals easier. Brit also uses his new newspaper company to print as many stories about his new altar ego, The Green Hornet, to get his name out there.

The biggest flaw in this movie is that their plan is pretty stupid in the end. Instead of just fighting bad guys, they are fighting bad guys and cops. Which obviously leads to some hilarious misunderstandings. The other big flaw is the length of The Green Hornet. Christopher Nolan can make Batman three hours long because hes awesome. This is an untested superhero movie almost clocking two hours, yikes.

Otherwise The Green Hornet is a very interesting film. The dynamic between hero and sidekick is blurred. Kato is obviously the sidekick, but he is the only one with fighting skills or technological prowess. Brit is there because he's rich. Unlike Iron Man or Batman, Brit has no superhero qualities. He isn't even charming or attractive and that makes him very self conscious. Kato is the actual superhero but is repeatedly referred to as the sidekick, this kind of makes him mad. Their intial successes for to the wayside because they can't reconcile their places on the superhero spectrum.

On the other side, Chudnofsky (played awesomely by Christoph Waltz) is an aging villian who is constantly grasping with getting older. He's no longer scary and no one finds him threatening even though he kills them in increasingly violent ways and carries a two barreled desert eagle.

The point is The Green Hornet breaks most superhero norms and it derserves credit for that. It also has a lot of pretty decent action. I saw a lot of reviews ripping on the action. The action was great, be quiet, there were tons of guns, fighting, explosions and table legs through eyeballs so don't be mad at it for not enough action.

It's not a great superhero film, but it was a good effort and I mostly enjoyed watching it. And there is a great cameo by James Franco in the beginning. I love that man.

2 and a half out of 4 stars


-Christopher O'Connell