Review: The Green Hornet (2011)

For fans of the original TV series, starring the legendary Bruce Lee in one of his pivotal TV roles – Kato, The Green Hornet is an integral part of our pop culture. After being caught in the vortex of a series of developments with actors involved ranging from Jet Li to George Clooney, at a point it seemed The Green Hornet would never see the Green light. When announcements were made that Kevin Smith had withdrawn from the writing of this project, and that Seth Rogen would be starring as the masked vigilante, things were getting a bit worrying. But then, the guy on the director’s chair was revealed as the guy behind the brilliant Eternal Sunshine… and the awesome Be Kind Rewind , Michael Gondry. Saying that expectations were high would be an understatement. But the wait is finally over and the end result is pretty ass-kicking.

For the uninitiated, Green Hornet – just like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark is the only son of a multi-billionaire. Unlike them, he isn’t a genius. He is pretty much Seth Rogen. He partys hard and is spending his life drenched in booze. Until his father dies in an allergic bee sting accident, and suddenly he has to come to terms with running his dad’s newspaper empire. He also gets to meet Kato – the genius mechanic who also makes brilliant coffee. And they team together to become ‘kick-ass’ (pun intended).

There are few things which I didn’t like about the movie, and a lot which I liked. So let’s deal with them one by one.

1. 3D : The 3D in this movie is shit and totally unnecessary. For most part of the movie is shot indoors where there is a fair amount of time which is spent in conversation. No one wants to be besotted by the spectacle of a 3D boardroom view. Even so, sometimes it was even possible to watch the movie without the 3D glasses. The main motive behind releasing it in 3D was the money-making motive. And there’s nothing jumping out of the screen. Shame on you Columbia!

Spoiler Alert

2. Cameron Diaz: Her role as the mastermind, the secretary and domestic femme-fatale is totally crap. The narrative is not very kind to her, and she feels either left out, or being reduced to an object of flirtation by the lead characters.

3. Seth Rogen as Britt Reid: He plays the clueless and spoilt brat effortlessly. And all the aspects of a nerd dude, jubilantly exclaiming at the sight of an awesome shiny car or a destructive weapon are brilliantly portrayed. Britt Reid isn’t Tony Stark. He isn’t the one who creates all these tools, and he is shit with fighting as well. All he’s got is the power to endlessly speak like a stand up comic who cracks joke about balls. And Seth Rogen has been that dude in real life. And so, Britt Reid turns out as a ‘kinda’ grey character who is driven by his own ego and he’s a damn selfish and useless prick at times. But then, he’s a real flesh and blood person, unlike the very self-righteous Batman who wouldn’t kill anyone. So, our hero has no hesitation, whatsoever, from bombing explosives around the city and setting drug plants on fire.

4. Speaking of drugs – Edward Furlong – yes, John Connor from Terminator II – Judgement Day – he’s the one who played that minor role of the drug dealer dude. Drugs and time haven’t been really merciful on him.

5. Christoph Waltz : He is a brrilliant actor ( I put that extra r just to emphasize his brilliance). But here, he’s just reduced to a badly written role of a Russian gangster – Chudnofsky. Although he is bad ass ( no doubt ), but his evil plans are either limited to ruling over LA or appearing scary. His plans are quite laughable at times, and his extreme insecurity about not being the cool one is just a tad silly. Someone as menacing to be ruling LA should have been at least a bit more evil. The one comparison which I cannot help making is Frank D’Amico ( from Kick Ass ). Now that was a drug lord to fear. Although Chudnofsky has the double barrel, and even when he changes his name to Blood-nofsky and wears red, that couldn’t give his career the much needed boost. Having said that, that kill was very satisfying

6. Kato and Kato-vision: Jay Chou has some really big shoes to fill, and his attempt in this movie was very very cool. Chou plays Kato with utter sincerity and the emergence of Kato as the ‘bigger than hero’ sidekick is brilliant (How many times have I used that word so far? ). Kato’s role in the duo is to basically create stuff to kick ass, and then kick ass by using those awesome ass-kicking stuff. And all of that is shown with splendid visuals. The now famous Kato-vision is a new addition to bulet-time action scenes, and is a visually psychedelic feast. I was kept asking for more and hence, I felt there was a need of more of that awesome Kato vision sequences to be included in the final action scene. Also, another complaint of mine is it is a bit unexplained, how all of a sudden, and quite conveniently, Britt Reid develops the self-aware state of mind (Or as Ross calls it – Unaagi ).
Oh, did anyone fancy a coffee after we saw Kato’s cup of coffee. Slurp!

7. Black Beauty: The Black Beauty is the Green Hornet equivalent of the Batmobile. Its shiny black, and can change colours. It contains missiles, can deploy explosives, can protrude metal spears sideways from its tyres and has ejector seats. All I have to say is – WANT.

8. Final thoughts: It was an enjoyable movie fit for being consumed with ample amount of beer and crisps. The jokes kept appearing at uniform intervals. The origin of the name – Green Hornet was quite funny. And Seth Rogen is perfect as the dickhead rich dude, as well as the vulnerable and useless, yet heroic masked hero. Kato rocked everyone’s socks off. Although, I don’t understand how even Kato is beaten up easily by Cameron Diaz. Diaz is useless. The evil dudes in this movie needed to be more evil. The biggest plus about this movie is Kato vision. That’s a reason enough to make this a must-see. Hurry.

Tagged as: action, Movies, Review, SuperHero