The Green Hornet

In updating the costumed crime-fighter, The Green Hornet, for today's audiences, comic actor Seth Rogen (who not only stars as the titular hero, but also co-wrote and produced the film) decided to make the character in his own image. This is less a superhero movie, and more an ego project for Rogen, as he constantly yammers on and mugs for the camera. He seems to think he's a hoot. Audiences, I suspect, will have a different reaction.

This is a shockingly inept movie, made much more so by the fact that the director is the very fine Michael Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). It's an overlong exercise in sound and fury, broken up by long strings of Rogen doing his likable doofus routine that won over audiences in films like Knocked Up and Pineapple Express, but seems out of place and tired here. The film itself is a failed attempt to liven up a fairly generic action film, complete with a non-existent plot, with self-referencing humor. Though I chuckled on occasion, most of the jokes fall flat, due to Rogen's obnoxious performance, combined with his almost total lack of chemistry with his co-star, Jay Chou (stepping into the role of the Hornet's sidekick, made famous by Bruce Lee in the old TV series). This, sadly, is the least of the film's troubles. You know an action movie is in trouble when you spend a majority of the running time waiting for the action to even start. You know an action movie is beyond hope when the action finally kicks in, and gets dragged out so long, you can't wait for it to end.

Even if you have no history with The Green Hornet, you should find his story familiar. Spoiled billionaire brat Britt Reid (Rogen) is the aimless, hard-partying son of gruff newspaper tycoon, James (Tom Wilkinson, in a throw away cameo). An awkward edit and scene cut later, and James is dead, leaving Britt in charge of the family business. Rather than pursue a journalistic career, however, Britt decides to go into the costumed vigilante racket. He teams up with his father's old auto mechanic, Kato (Chou), who just happens to have a passion for building souped-up bullet-proof cars with lots of hidden weapons, as well as other gadgets. Together, they don masks and costumes, and go about taking out the city's leading crime kingpin, Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz). There's also a crooked D.A. (David Harbour), and a lovely secretary at the newspaper office named Lenore (Cameron Diaz) for Britt and Kato to fight over. Maybe we'd understand their need to fight over her if the character of Lenore was given something to do other than...well, stand around and look like Cameron Diaz.

The movie spends a lot of time (too much time, actually) going nowhere, as we're subjected to scene after scene of Rogen's trademark man-child humor, where he reacts to literally everything around him with a "gee whiz, this is cool" kind of naivety. It's kind of amusing as he marvels at Kato's various weapons and inventions with a child-like wonder ("You're like a human Swiss Army Knife", he says at one point), but grows tiresome when you realize it's all the character is built on. Everyone else is given very little to work with. Jay Chou shows some charisma as Kato, but he's forced into the background too often by his co-star's constant yammering. As for Christoph Waltz, it's only fitting that he follows up one of the more memorable villain roles in recent memory in Inglourious Basterds (for which he won an Oscar) with one of the least memorable.

In Hollywood's never-ending quest for the all mighty dollar, The Green Hornet is being shown in 3D. As expected, it adds absolutely nothing. In fact, there's barely anything here displayed in 3D. I was able to watch a good 90% of the film or so with the glasses off, and still get a crystal clear picture. If I sound like I'm repeating myself, it's only because the studios refuse to learn from their mistakes, and keep on pushing out this sub-par 3D, expecting audiences to pay extra for it. It is also a sign that 2011 will not exactly see a change when it comes to the technology being used right. Until audiences wise up, get used to wearing those clunky glasses, and being subjected to poor picture quality.

The Green Hornet might work as light entertainment if there was anything up there on the screen to recommend. It lacks a real identity, instead throwing a lot of noise and special effects up on the screen to cover it up. Given the talent on and off the screen, I expected more. January doesn't have to be a depressing time to go to the movies, but it's movies like this that remind you why it usually is.

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