Review

Review Date: 16-January-11
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Junk

The Green Hornet (2011)

Eyebrows shot up when Seth Rogen, pudgy star of comedies like Knocked Up and Pineapple Express, announced his intention of playing classic crime fighter the Green Hornet and when Michel Gondry, auteur behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, was tapped to direct this outing. For my part, I thought it might be refreshing to see a normal-looking actor headline an experiment that promised to stand out from the superhero crowd. But the familiar formulae of comic book adaptations and action movies began to seem like artistic wisdom as I started watching The Green Hornet. I'm convinced that rending my flesh with an ice pick and rubbing the wounds with lemon juice would have been a more pleasurable experience.

Some of the horror of the Hornet can be blamed on its origins. Racism was more acceptable when the Green Hornet made his radio debut in the 1930s. These days it's expected for people to frown upon it at least outwardly, but the makers of the movie either didn't get the memo or didn't want to mess with the, er, charm of their subject. The Green Hornet is the alter ego of Britt Reid, sole heir of a newspaper magnate who compensates for being neglected as a child by behaving like a lobotomized frat boy as an adult. After a run-in with some hoodlums, Britt decides it would be fun to fight crime incognito and recruits one of the hired help, a Chinese mechanic/martial-arts master/super-barista named Kato (Jay Chou), to join him. Because Britt is the white and rich one of the pair, he becomes the leader with Kato as his nameless sidekick in a chauffeur's uniform. Never mind that Kato is the brains and brawn of the operation who creates all the essential gadgetry, while Britt is a talentless twit who contributes nothing whatsoever.

Beyond the idiocy of the main characters' dynamic, the rest of the movie's failings can be blamed on the filmmakers (including Rogen, who co-wrote the screenplay). "Twit" is too gentle a word for such a crass, uneducated, ineffectual man-slut as Britt — I can't remember the last time I hated a character so much. The intended villain of the piece is an ill conceived combination of buffoon and madman (Christoph Waltz) who enables a running joke about his ethnic name and lack of image. (Hardy-har-har!) As the dorky duo moves toward a showdown with the foe, they both try to woo Britt's secretary, who is played by Cameron Diaz. Her presence is pointless unless her agent deemed it necessary to call attention to how old she looks (there's an awkward joke around this). At least the token female can be credited with refusing to hook up with Britt and not landing in danger from which he must save her. She's absent from the finale, in fact, which drags on too long and ludicrously does not result in Britt's death. Could Rogen and the studio actually think this nincompoop merits another movie? When it comes to The Green Hornet, the "hero" sucks, the humor's lame, and anyone who pays to see it gets stung.

Copyright © 2011 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.