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The Green Hornet
| Released |
14 January 2011 |
| Director |
Michel Gondry |
Starring
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Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Cameron Diaz, Christoph Waltz, Tom Wilkinson |
| Writer(s) |
Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg |
| Producer(s) |
Neal H. Moritz |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
115 minutes |
| Genre |
Action, crime, thriller |
| Rating |
12A |
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Fails to sting.
With eccentric French director Michael Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) at the helm, The Green Hornet was always going to be that little bit different. While some things remain loyal to the superhero genre (pimped out car-check; naff attempts at disguise-check) there are some subtle digressions that attempt to place this movie in its only little quirky subniche. Years in development-The Green Hornet as a big-screen adaptation of a 1930s popular radio series was first proposed in 1992-it wasn't until the idea reached Rogen and his Superbad-writer-in-crime Evan Goldberg that the production got the green light and filming could begin.
The story centres around the life of spoilt LA rich kid Britt Reid (Rogen) who is charged with overseeing his father's newspaper when the latter passes away from an alleged bee sting. Discovering that his father's mechanic-cum-cappuccino maker Kato (Jay Chou) is a one man martial art fighting machine, Britt attempts to reinvent himself as the ultimate avenger of crime-The Green Hornet- who aims to rid the streets of LA of all criminal activity. However things take an ugly turn when Reid and Kato infringe on Russian crimeboss Chudnofsky (the excellent Christoph Waltz) and his turf and it remains to be seen whether The Green Hornet is any match for the double-barrelled guns of 'Bloodnovsky.'
While the movie should be applauded for attempting to take a different fresh look at this kind of genre ultimately, it fails to make much of an impact due to a myriad of problems. Firstly, while Rogen is a connoisseur of the genial idiotic male lead he fails to inject any sort of humanity into the character of Britt Reid so that when matters come to a head, we fail to empathise with such a selfish mollycoddled manchild; secondly, while Diaz brings some much-needed acting chutzpah to her rather meagre role as Lenore Case-Reid's secretary-she is sadly underused in a movie which could have benefited from a strong female presence; and finally, the whole set-up of unlikely hero versus his arch nemseis in a bid to save mankind is so overworked at this point that despite some minor welcome breaches in the treatment The Green Hornet ultimately fails to jostle the shoulders of big-hitters like Batman and Iron Man.
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Louisa McElwee |
