Dude Gets Bored, Dons a Mask, Destroys LA, The End
In all fairness, The Green Hornet would likely have sucked almost as much even if he hadn’t got skinny. It hurts me to say it, but there it is.
I so wanted to love this movie, but it just wouldn’t let me. Sure, it’s stylish and even kind of funny at times. There are lots of sweet cars and also car chases. And it definitely could have been worse—it’s not nearly as bad as the George Clooney Batman, for example.
The problem is that The Green Hornet is the one thing that no superhero-action-comedy should ever, ever be: It’s boring.
There’s no real suspense or mystery and it’s impossible to care about what little there is. Christoph Waltz, who was such a wonderfully evil Nazi in Inglourious Basterds, plays a the villain here, as well. But his character, “Bloodnofsky,” is way too insecure to seem truly wicked enough to warrant all of the killing and destruction perpetrated by the “good” guys.
I’m not kidding. The heores virtually destroy Los Angeles in an attempt to bring down a Russian gangster and one corrupt politician. Thanks guys.
Seth Rogen plays Seth Rogen dressed up as the Green Hornet, an inept masked vigilante. The problem is not so much that Rogen plays the same-old-same-old, but that he’s so damn annoying. He talks constantly, but doesn’t have any depth or dark side to make him worth my time.
It’s not that we expect some kind of dark, sexy Christian-Bale-as-Bruce-Wayne melancholy—this is Seth Rogen we’re talking about. But a touch of the nice (chubby) Canadian we’ve come to know and love would have been a good addition.
Just as when he was played by Bruce Lee on TV, Kato is the story’s real hero. He’s played by Jay Chou, the Chinese megastar, and is the most entertaining, as well as talented, part of the movie. I haven't yet mentioned Cameron Diaz as the under-overachieving secretary. Just as well.
All of this is really a roundabout way of saying that I’m mostly disappointed in Michel Gondry, the director, whose previous movies and Bjork videos have made my life so much better. Gondry is known for his quirky, eccentric visuals, which often have a hand-made aesthetic. WTF happened to that?! The Green Hornet in a strange alternate Gondryverse would have been a completely different and much more interesting movie—even if the script had remained the same.
Hollywood! Give us back our Gondry!
