Cinema Verdict Review: The Green Hornet

The Green Hornet

OPENING: 01/14/2011

STUDIO: Columbia Pictures

RUN TIME: 119 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
Breaking the Law to Protect It

Opening Statement
It’s no secret that The Green Hornet went through a long and troubled development period. Folks like Kevin Smith, Jake Gyllenhaal, George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg were attached the film at various points, but the property eventually fell into the hands of actor/writer Seth Rogen and director Michel Gondry. Together, this unlikely duo turn in a version of The Green Hornet that’s by turns oddly entertaining and unforgivably messy.

Facts of the Case
Britt Reid (Seth Rogen, Knocked Up) is the spoiled son of a powerful newspaper editor (Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton). When his father passes away, Britt decides to stop fooling around and do something with his life. Dear old dad was committed to the fight against crime in his newspapers, so Britt decides he’s going to take the fight to the streets. With the invaluable aid of his father’s former auto mechanic/coffee-maker Kato (Jay Chou, Curse of the Golden Flower), Britt adopts his new secret identity as “The Green Hornet” and begins a mission to take down the city’s most powerful crime lord (Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds).

The Evidence
The most immediately amusing idea this version of The Green Hornet has to offer is that it’s a superhero movie without a superhero. Well, that’s not true–Kato is pretty impressive in a variety of ways. However, the title character certainly doesn’t qualify as a superhero in the traditional sense. He has no extraordinary powers, no noteworthy fighting abilities and an intellect that’s just a little below average. Kato is Batman and Alfred wrapped into one. That leaves Britt in the role of Bruce Wayne, though he doesn’t have half as much business sense. When he inherits his father’s newspaper business, he insists on meeting with the staff. His attempts at inspirational speeches have a way of leaving people feeling nervous about their careers.

So, Britt and Kato wander into a variety of violent situations. In most instances, this involves Britt getting in way over his head and Kato finding a way to bail him out. Things would probably go smoother if Kato were by himself, but Britt’s the one with the money and the desire for notoriety. There’s a good deal of humor in the little moments in which Kato subtly attempts to find ways to protect Britt from his own foolishness. The film more or less works when it’s in buddy-movie mode, though these two spend so much time bickering that I’m not sure “buddy” really applies.

However, things get more problematic when the film enters action-movie mode. Save for one stylish gimmick Gondry has to offer (that would be the intriguing “Kato-Vision”), the action scenes tend to be loud and purposeless. They’re too much of a muchness, as we often see a lot of chaos onscreen but aren’t always able to easily identify who is doing what to whom. It seems as if Gondry is so caught up in his moments of clever minutiae that he fails to do enough work on the big-picture stuff.

In a way, the entire film is like that. The Green Hornet is loaded with clever dialogue exchanges, fun visual tricks and charmingly kooky moments, but it neglects far too many of its characters, suffers from uncomfortable tonal shifts and has some severe pacing problems. Additionally, the film seems to become increasingly conventional as it proceeds, eventually trading in free-wheeling loopiness for a banal, generic third act. I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I was in the film’s action-packed finale, which crushes some light touches of wit with overbearing blandness.

Rogen and Chou have some nice chemistry together, though they fare better during quiet moments (such as a scene in which the two sing together while enjoying a ride in Black Beauty, their tricked-out automobile). Rogen doesn’t stretch himself much and clearly doesn’t fit the traditional superhero mold, but he wrote the role for himself and thus never seems miscast. Chou stumbles over his English-language dialogue from time to time, but he has an appealing screen presence and a pretty good sense of comic timing. His subdued demeanor plays particularly well off of Rogen’s boisterous personality.

The supporting players aren’t bad, but the screenplay by Rogen and Evan Goldberg treats them badly. Christoph Waltz has a terrific opening scene with a hilarious punch line, but after that he’s given little of interest to do (even worse, variations on the aforementioned punch line are repeated so frequently that eventually the joke runs out of steam). Cameron Diaz (The Box) initially seems to be playing the obligatory love interest, though she neither falls in love with anyone nor manages to be interesting. Honestly, there’s no reason for her to be in the film. I suppose the filmmakers were worried about not having a female in the principle cast. Tom Wilkinson and Edward James Olmos (Battlestar Galactica) are both prominently credited, but they’re onscreen so little that you’ll probably forget they were in it.

Closing Statement
When we learn that Wilkinson’s character has passed away early in the film, a news flash informs us of the cause: a bee sting. That’s an amusingly offbeat way for a character to die; particularly in a film like this. I laughed at what seemed to be a poke at other superhero tales in which parental figures die horrible deaths at the hands of villains. Alas, later in the film it’s revealed that Wilkinson was not killed by a bee sting, but rather by an injection which was administered by… well, that would be telling. Suffice it to say that I was displeased this turn of events. That’s the movie in a nutshell: oddball fun alternating with considerable disappointment. It’s not bad, it doesn’t work, it’s worth seeing, it’s not worth paying for, it’s fresh, it’s typical, it’s funny, it’s tedious, it doesn’t deserve to be released in January, it doesn’t deserve to be a summer blockbuster, it’s… well, it’s The Green Hornet.

The Verdict
6/10