The Green Hornet

This is a below average superhero movie where Seth Rogan and Jay Chou star in the movie update to the classic TV series starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee as the masked crime fighting team.

As with any superhero movie, there are plenty of fight scenes and alter-ego suspense. The special effects were quite good and the story is average, nothing too exciting or impressing about it. Jay Chou made a pretty good Kato with his serious and die hard attitude and his skillful martial arts moves. Seth Rogan made an awful Green Hornet - obnoxious, loud, annoying and unsympathetic. His gruff, raspy and incredibly irritating voice made me glad that Kato delivered him several good punches. Cameron Diaz looked like she was thrown in for good measure.

When you end up rooting against the lead superhero, there's really not much enjoyment in this movie.

Grade D-

"So this is what you want out of your life? This gives you sense of fulfillment? I spend all night, writing about the corruption in this town, and you do nothing." Jack Reid (Tom Wilkinson) to his son, Britt (Green Hornet Seth Rogen) The Green Hornet is unlike most other comic-book-hero film adaptation: Seth Rogen's slacker Hornet is a dipstick without a clue about navigating the crime world while Kato ( pop star Jay Chou), his valet/associate, pretty much plays the Bruce Lee/kung-fu role as cool, even when he's goofing with the Hornet, which is most of the time. It is also a bromance with Cameron Diaz as Lenore Case, a love interest who helps us get over the homoerotic subtext.

Geeks know the Green Hornet franchise well: radio show from 1936 to 1952; TV show in 1966 by the producers of the campy Batman TV series, while Green Hornet's greatest asset was emerging martial arts star Bruce Lee. Writers Rogen and Evan Goldberg renew that 60's camp but with it seeming out of date, as if the parodic part of the genre cycle had long ago been played out and not welcome anymore. Of course, you could argue that Despicable Me, Kick Ass, Megamind, and Iron Man 2 last year took to parody, but each one of those is more successful at marrying the satire to the action than Green Hornet.

The personality of the film is split—it's either satire or action, Hornet or Kato. The film is a bit away from the accepted concepts of this sub-genre except in Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz), the arch villain whose ironic reactions are an adept amalgam of menace and insouciance.

As he did in Inglorious Basterds, Waltz commands the screen with his charming menace. Actually he is equaled in the opening sequence, the best scene of the movie, when he faces off James Franco in a cameo, two hoods pissing about their territory. Franco is quite good as a semi-clueless drug lord.

Britt has daddy issues, specifically making something of his life while newspaper owner dad. Jack Reid (Tom Wilkinson), is a hero to the city. With dad's death, Britt decides to fight crime as the Green Hornet while letting everyone think he is a criminal (as in the original versions).

The gadgets are Bond-worthy, and Kato has the Bruce Lee charisma; it's just Rogen who seems out of place—not believable as a hero from beginning to end of the film. He can be amusing as a man-kid, but the geeks will never accept him as their hero.

The Green Hornet has lost its buzz.

This movie is massivly underrated. It has a great plot and a great cast to follow.

I watched "The Green Hornet" with a sense of skepticism. Having grown up with the original TV series, this movie really had some big shoes to fill out. And surprisingly enough, it managed to do so in a good enough way. But there were also aspects of the movie that were less than successful.

First of all, Seth Rogen (playing Britt Reid/The Green Hornet). No, no, no. I know he was involved in directing and writing the movie and all, but he is not chiseled out for an action role of this caliber. I do admire his spirit and enthusiasm, but he is more suited for comedy movies. Seeing him in this role didn't go well with me. He did bring along some comedy, but it didn't work so well in this particular movie.

And the scene at the beginning where Britt Reid was bringing home a woman and they went through the garage and sat in all the cars (showing them off for the audience, actually) in high-speed capture, what was up with that? Already at that point, the movie started to falter and crash.

Jay Chou (playing Kato) certainly had HUGE shoes to fill out after the original role was played by Bruce Lee. And actually Chou did a decent enough job, with good acting and well-choreographed action/fighting sequences. So hats off to him for that.

However, the most memorable person in the movie was Christoph Waltz (playing Chudnofsky). He was fantastic as a villain and worked his role very well and very convincingly. Plus there was also a good sense of humor to his role, and it worked well.

The story told in the movie was fast-paced, captivating and interesting enough to keep you enthralled throughout the entire feature length.

For an action movie, then "The Green Hornet" is actually quite good. But for a follow-up to the legacy of the TV series, the movie is a mediocre attempt with good intentions. Had they cast someone else for Britt Reid, it would have worked much better. Now, I am not saying that Seth Rogen is a bad actor, he was just ill-suited for this role. "The Green Hornet" is good entertainment if you are in for an evening of action, corny one-liners and a trip down memory lane.

I've been keeping my expectations low for this film and I'm glad that I did. I was a big fan of the 60's television show, but I didn't watch any episodes until the mid 90's; so I've been waiting almost 15 years for a film adaptation on the Green Hornet.

The film is campy, the story is corny, the villain is wasted and Seth Rogen wrote the script. Based on the plot and the dialogs, it's not a well made movie; but it doesn't try to be. This movie could have been written more seriously and be on the same map as a Christopher Nolan's Batman film; but instead, it went on the road to be a comedic film with a lot of explosions. Some stuff didn't work, other stuff was clever & visually entertaining.

The stuff that I admired the most are the homage to the original television show. There were some criticism to the 60's show about how the Kato character was just a sidekick, butler, manservant, an aid or a chauffeur to the Green Hornet. Bruce Lee didn't have much dialogs and he didn't have much screen time. It was during the 60's and just having an Asian-American to be an everyday character on a show was a big deal, so I never saw that as an insult. In this movie, they make a HUGE deal about that subject as Seth Rogen & Jay Chou are constantly arguing about Kato's role throughout the whole film.

Other homage to the television show is a drawn image of Bruce Lee, Al Hirt's theme "Flight of the Bumblebee" tune, and there's even a scenario from my favorite episode that has been written into the movie. The Black Beauty is also a very awesome car! The funny thing is that in the TV show, the Black Beauty was a brand new & very recent 1966 Imperial Crown sedan. In the movie, it's the exact same vehicle; but it's now a classical vintage car.

I saw the 3D version and there were very few sequences where the 3D effects was worth the extra price of admission. I recommend saving your money and watch the 2D version instead.

To finally sum everything up; the movie isn't good, but it brought back my love for the characters inside the Green Hornet world. The film is visually entertaining for what it is. I hope there's a sequel, but that somebody else will write its screenplay.