THE GREEN HORNET REVIEW

When the first trailers landed for The Green Hornet I wasn’t impressed. Not even in the slightest. I thought Seth Rogen was miscast and the effects were dodgy. And that was even before the 3D part. So, to be honest, I went to see The Green Hornet with very low expectations. Actually, make that zero expectations.

I’m not too familiar with the original series with Bruce Lee and have never heard the radio version but I’m presuming the story stays true..for the best part, as these kinda movies do. Otherwise the fanboys will riot through the streets. Seth Rogen is Britt Reid who is more or less a spoilt, lazy, well to do party boy. He becomes The Green Hornet after his father dies and he inherits his father’s empire, which includes a newspaper, The Daily Sentinel. He’s not alone on this superhero quest as one of his fathers mechanics and coffee makers (!) Kato (played by Asian superstar Jay Chou) tags along for the ride. And if truth be told, between the two of them, Kato is the only one that can kick some ass. Kato is also handy with a tool box and has done some serious modifications to the Hornet mobile, Black Beauty. So, they go off and start fighting crime, well, Kato does, Hornet just bumbles around the place. Eventually, they catch the eye of the supreme bad guy in town, Chudnofsky who takes it upon himself to destroy the bad guy fighting duo. As this is going on, Cameron Diaz turns up as secretary and doesn’t exactly do much, besides being the obvious eye candy. And that’s kinda that really. Come to think of it, there’s not much of a story here.

Seth Rogen, who I love, is still miscast in this. As much as he tries to shed the Knocked Up vibe, he doesn’t succeed to any great extent. He still trundles around the place in the same old way and any attempts to garnish a few laughs, are far and few between. That said, there is some genuinely good chemistry between himself and Jay Chou. Chou does put in a better performance and is far more physical and has a better screen presence as Kato.  Besides the ending, I’m still not sure what the whole point of having Cameron Diaz turn up was. There’s nothing wrong with her performance, she does what does. But her role seems completely pointless. Christoph Waltz is someone else that seems to be miscast. Again, his performance is adequate and he does have a few good one liners, but generally I’m surprised that he would have signed up for something like this.

It’s not all bad news though with The Green Hornet. Some of the special effects (contrary to my original thoughts) and set pieces are quite good and the action scenes are well choreographed. It’s certainly a change of pace for Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) who to his credit, keeps the whole thing thundering along, even if it does feel a little bit disjointed. Anyway, back to the bad news, the 3D conversion is absolutely appalling. There is very little in the wow factor here and for most of the time, the 3D seems to induce an almost translucent effect on the screen. It’s quite a surreal experience, and not in a good way. I reckon the 2D version is more enjoyable and the 3D certainly doesn’t do anything for the movie, in fact it takes away from it and is more of a hindrance and distraction than anything else.

There’s nothing glaringly bad about The Green Hornet and at the same time, there’s nothing amazing about it either. It will keep you occupied and entertained for the best part, just don’t watch this with any expectations.