Review of The Green Hornet (2011) by Ismael P — 16 Oct 2012

The Green Hornet. What good can I say about The Green Hornet? Not much. Not much at all. There's plenty wrong with this movie and I would love to tell you the awful, awful details.

The Green Hornet has the same name as the 60's television show. Why the similarities are so basic, I have no idea. I've watched some re-runs of the tv show. I was genuinely entertained, honestly. The show relied heavily on fight-scenes and plot build-up. It wasn't half bad for a vintage show in my mind. Apparently, during the 60's, nobody agreed as it only aired for a year. Shame. With Bruce Lee as one of the main stars in the show? Just a shame... So this brand new take on The Green Hornet wanted to capture some of the nostalgic traits of the tv show while giving it a fresh comical spin for the present. Sounds fun to me on paper. Sounds pretty fun in general, right? It wasn't. It really wasn't.

The plot follows Britt Reid, son of an asshole of a father who happens to own the most popular news paper in LA. His father dies rather quickly in the film in a pretty lame manor (i won't spoil it) and it's hard to feel bad for the father or the son since they practically hated each other in the first place. Long story short, after the death of his father, Britt meets a guy named Kato who worked for Britt's father. Britt quickly finds out that Kato is a kick-ass gadget inventor and one drunken night, they come up with a crazy idea, "Let's fight crime since we have nothing else to look forward to in our lives anyways." Pretty awful reason, but whatever. The movie continues nonetheless.

On that drunken night, they go out and end up saving a couple from being mugged in stylized action movie fashion. They think what they had done was beneficial until they turn on the news and notice that they're put out to be criminals. So they come up with a "better" idea than before, "Let's pose as criminals, to get closer to the real criminals." Wait, who is it they want to fight you ask? No one in particular would be the answer, they're just bored with their lives.

Even the villain of the film, played by the talented Christoph Waltz, is one of the worst movie villains I've ever seen. He's not intimidating in any way. He's just crazy and silly and runs some sort of drug cartel. Whoa, scary. Oh yea, Cameron Diaz is in the movie but she's not even worth mentioning. Really. The acting is awful.

I got a few small chuckles out of the constant humor thrown at the audience, and I was a little amused with a couple of the action sequences, but nothing seemed fun. This would have been a good movie if (comedy, action sequences, and all) the entire film wasn't pointed towards immature twelve year-olds. Such a awful plot with overly-immature humor, obnoxiously stylized action scenes, and mediocre acting at best. Still not the worst movie I've ever seen in my lifetime, but I'm so disappointed I wasted my time watching this film.