The Green Hornet

Frankly, very few remakes are worth the time. I was expecting a disaster of a movie when I started watching, but was pleasantly surprised.

Seth Rogen is his usual self/character. He needs to learn more than one trick. I found his acting flat and his voice monotonous. So kudos to the screen and script writers for making it interesting enough that Mr Rogen's shortcomings are overcame.

Cameron Diaz.... Of the hundreds of actresses in the movie industry, why her? Is her character written in, in the last minute? Or is there some kind of compulsory need to add a female lead, so that the 2 male leads are not seen as homosexuals? She was refreshing a decade ago, now she is just.... boring and highly predictable.

Jay Chou. Being an Asian-Asian, I personally never like or dislike him. He has a zero-expression face, no matter what movie he is in. Putting him in the shoes of Bruce Lee is a tough order. Of all the characters in the movie, his is the most significant one. Ones with big expectations to fill, and I think he did alright. Do remember this is his first Hollywood movie. Other than that, I still say he can't really act.

Story/plot. The movie is fast pace enough that even the slow moments get by really fast. After a first 15 minutes or so, there is very little dull moments. One of the few things I disliked about this movie is the elevated level of gory deaths. Is it really necessary? As I said before the screen and script writers did a fantastic job in this adaptation.

For pure action entertainment, I'll give it 8 or 9 out of 10. However, overall it should only garner a 7, in my opinion.

What I expected from a Seth Rogen film. I enjoyed the goofy humor mixed in with very cool weapons, and kick butt martial arts action. I would have to say this movie targets guys and people under the age of 30 or so. You have to take the movie for what it is worth, if you are a serious person looking for A+ acting with a top-notch storyline then you should skip this movie. However, if you still have a kid inside you that enjoys laughing, not taking things to seriously, and comic's/super hero action then you will enjoy this film. The villain Christoph Waltz who also starred in Inglourious Basterds also helped make the film worth seeing in my opinion, and he had one of the sweetest gun's I've seen in a movie. Other big actors in the film include Cameron Diaz & Tom Wilkinson.

Even though I liked this movie, I think most people would not feel liked they missed out on anything too special if they waited for DVD. It's a fun movie, with good special effects, fight scenes, and a laid back attitude, but nothing that will blow you away.

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The Green Hornet is a very old hero character, dating back to radio dramas in the 30's, playing alongside The Shadow, Buck Rogers, and The Lone Ranger. (In fact, the Green Hornet was a spin off of The Lone Ranger... The Lone Ranger was the Green Hornet's grand-uncle, in the radio world.) Like his contemporaries he appeared in other media, including television. The television series, which featured 1/2 hour segments, starred Bruce Lee as Kato, and was his boost into celebrity. The great Bruce Lee martial arts movies might never have happened if it weren't for his gig on the Green Hornet.

The Green Hornet may have also been Bob Kane's inspiration for Batman in 1939. There are many similarities, which need not be listed here.

But alas, this feature film remake is a dull take on this old character, which deserved better treatment. I don't know exactly how Seth Rogen (who played Britt Reid and who has a writing credit) got a hold of it, but it's as though someone behind the scenes mistook the Green Hornet for a farce comedy like Get Smart and then failed to even make it funny.

The dialog had no horsepower at all, and while there were a few funny moments, after a while I got aggravated at the desperate attempts to make me laugh. Sometimes it seemed like the actors were derailed, trying to improvise, and it wasn't working.

There were two cool things about the TV series. 1) Kato, because he kicks butt. They got lucky, because Bruce Lee really was one-of-a-kind. 2) Black Beauty, their armed car that flips up from the garage floor and has guns built into it. While both of these aspects remained pretty cool in this movie, they were also elevated a little too far into the realm of fantasy. And it didn't need to be that way.

Not a good offering by director Michel Gondry, who gave us the brilliant and original Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind years ago, and it may mean that he's one of those directors who cannot improve -- or does not see improvements in -- a script. He therefore shines when he gets a great script and fails when he gets a bad one. Tim Burton falls into that category.

The movie villain was played by Christoph Waltz, whose character was no less dumb than Seth Rogen's. A bad choice for an actor who just won an Oscar for his brilliant role as Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. What was his agent thinking? In all fairness, Waltz and his agent couldn't have known beforehand that The Green Hornet was going to be a sloppy script, and a sloppy execution. The super-hero wave is a big one at the movies these days, with one hit after the other, but they fail to remember other sloppy remakes of old radio heroes, such as The Shadow in 1994 starring Alec Baldwin, and The Legend of the Lone Ranger in in 1981 starring Klinton Spilsbury (who??).

The Green Hornet should have been a much more serious period movie set in the 30's about a man who is inspired to fight the mob in the fashion that his grand-uncle did as the Lone Ranger years earlier. That would have led to a serious Lone Ranger tie-in (a prequel as it were). Missed opportunities.

Save your $8, this movie isn't worth it.

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-

If you don't know what to expect and you haven't even seen the trailer than i believe you are going to have great fun. The movie is not a classic main stream super hero movie but a very nice parody making fun of the way super hero movies are made, emphasizing on their blank spots. Do not expect a meaningless script like "super hero movie". Green Hornet has its own storyline that is consistent, but the characters and situations are hilarious. I haven't laughed so much for a long time, which makes the movie a success judging by the result. I believe it is a great way to spent an evening if you want to relax and watch an easy entertaining movie.