Review of The Green Hornet (2011) by Ross B — 02 Jan 2012

The Green Hornet is based on the old radio show and eventual 1960s TV show that starred Bruce Lee as Kato. This film attempted to update the classic story yet at the same time it seemed to try and spoof its original source material.

Seth Rogen stars as Britt Reid, the son of a media mogul (Tom Wilkinson) who has simply never lived up to his potential. When his father dies, he now must run his empire even though he has no desire or expertise in the field.

Britt befriends his father's former car mechanic and coffee expert Kato (Jay Chou, who actually does a pretty good job). The two of them realize that they have a great time saving people after they stop a mugging from occurring.

The two decide that they can be superheros and stop crime by pretending to be bad guys and stopping them from the inside. Their main criminal nemesis is a mobster by the name of Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz, who also does a pretty good job), who only ever wanted to control all of the crime in LA.

Britt and Kato also are aided by Britt's recently hired secretary Lenore (Cameron Diaz), who was a journalism major with a minor in Criminology. The good parts of this film are really some of the inventive fight scenes that Gondry stages as well as the performances by Waltz and Chou.

Otherwise the film seems to fall flat. Seth Rogen simply is out of his element as a supposed action star and is just plain obnoxious at times in this film. Cameron Diaz's character just seems irrelevant and does not have much to do throughout the film.

In the end, there is a lot that Rogen and Gondry could have done with this film but the product never lives up to the expectations.