Superhero movies are pretty high at the moment; comic superheroes are all over the big screen. Iron Man, Batman, Catwoman. And of course X-Men, Thor and Avengers right at the horizon. They are of course all serious productions not like The Green Hornet starring Seth Rogan, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz and Cameron Diaz.
The Green Hornet is trying to be a combination of a superhero movie and a comedy. Action combined with comedy is a thing that worked in numerous films but unfortunately The Green Hornet is not an example for that case. It tries to split and be serious at the end with a bit drama and so on. It tries to be so many things but ends up being nothing.
The movie is not funny, no real puns, no punchlines, no nothing…if you are not into some kind of slapstick humor you will end up watching a close to two hours movie without ever losing it. The action is not what you see in action movies recently like A-Team and The Expendables. I know maybe not the best examples but they deliver good action and a whole lot of explosive materials. Only thing The Green Hornet does is having kind of good fights in a MMA fashion but that’s it. I mean those fights are at least presented well with slow-mo and some kind of cool vision channeled through Kato.
Still a movie could be around decent if it would have a nice story to tell, but even in that matter The Green Hornet can´t deliver. It comes out flat, like the story was written in about an hour or so. It all starts with a loser or to phrase it a bit more positive with a rich idler who doesn’t care about earning a paycheck or doing something meaningful with his life. After his dad dies he ends up owning a huge newspaper but still he doesn’t know what to do with it. Then all of a sudden he meets Kato and suddenly he wants to do something meaningful – fighting crime. Still he doesn’t know shit about fighting crime and his “sidekick” Kato does all the work with him getting the laurels. That’s pretty much film writing 101. A seven year old could come up with that idea.
So it ends how you would expect it they are competition... but even that comes out of nothing and has no build up. And that’s not even goofy enough, for some weird reason the writer decided to “spice” things up with a little bit of a love triangle that never appeals to be something because it is only mentioned a few times and Rogans character is not really presented as a womanizing competition to the cool MMA-fighter Kato. So the Cameron Diaz character is pretty much a waste because the love triangle is not featured in that big of a fashion. At least they haven’t made her being kidnapped – thank god.
So you are watching a movie with a wasted character and unappealing love triangle, an obvious story and a kind of Antihero in Seth Rogan. He doesn’t look like a fighter, he doesn’t appeal as a hero and he is no competition for Kato, the sidekick. Only thing he does is being a goof and bragging about his success as the green hornet in fighting crime, obviously trying to convince himself that he is the real hero and not the inventive and smart chinese sidekick. Still he ends up “learning” the Kato vision – however he managed to do that. It´s just stupid that he suddenly knows how to do things, without putting an effort in it, but whatever.
So why should you go in the theater and watch this movie? You shouldn’t really do it, but the movie still has some nice things to offer.
The idea of a superhero not being loved by the public is actually a nice idea, not new of course but still a nice idea. Visually The Green Hornet has some nice things to over. The Kato vision and the few explosions are well done – and slowmo always works in fights.
Other than that the ideas of Kato and the gimmicks in the car and in the weaponry are kind of nice. Last but not least Christoph Waltz is underutilized but still a nice addition to the cast. The few scenes with him are nice and it´s cool to see that he has some sparks of his Lambda role that brought him an Oscar. There he was obsessed with finding and killing jews, here he is obsessed with being scary. Nice thing to come back to a successful thing in a career to get some connections and references in the film.
The movie is not funny, no real puns, no punchlines, no nothing…if you are not into some kind of slapstick humor you will end up watching a close to two hours movie without ever losing it. The action is not what you see in action movies recently like A-Team and The Expendables. I know maybe not the best examples but they deliver good action and a whole lot of explosive materials. Only thing The Green Hornet does is having kind of good fights in a MMA fashion but that’s it. I mean those fights are at least presented well with slow-mo and some kind of cool vision channeled through Kato.
Still a movie could be around decent if it would have a nice story to tell, but even in that matter The Green Hornet can´t deliver. It comes out flat, like the story was written in about an hour or so. It all starts with a loser or to phrase it a bit more positive with a rich idler who doesn’t care about earning a paycheck or doing something meaningful with his life. After his dad dies he ends up owning a huge newspaper but still he doesn’t know what to do with it. Then all of a sudden he meets Kato and suddenly he wants to do something meaningful – fighting crime. Still he doesn’t know shit about fighting crime and his “sidekick” Kato does all the work with him getting the laurels. That’s pretty much film writing 101. A seven year old could come up with that idea.
So it ends how you would expect it they are competition... but even that comes out of nothing and has no build up. And that’s not even goofy enough, for some weird reason the writer decided to “spice” things up with a little bit of a love triangle that never appeals to be something because it is only mentioned a few times and Rogans character is not really presented as a womanizing competition to the cool MMA-fighter Kato. So the Cameron Diaz character is pretty much a waste because the love triangle is not featured in that big of a fashion. At least they haven’t made her being kidnapped – thank god.
So you are watching a movie with a wasted character and unappealing love triangle, an obvious story and a kind of Antihero in Seth Rogan. He doesn’t look like a fighter, he doesn’t appeal as a hero and he is no competition for Kato, the sidekick. Only thing he does is being a goof and bragging about his success as the green hornet in fighting crime, obviously trying to convince himself that he is the real hero and not the inventive and smart chinese sidekick. Still he ends up “learning” the Kato vision – however he managed to do that. It´s just stupid that he suddenly knows how to do things, without putting an effort in it, but whatever.
So why should you go in the theater and watch this movie? You shouldn’t really do it, but the movie still has some nice things to offer.
The idea of a superhero not being loved by the public is actually a nice idea, not new of course but still a nice idea. Visually The Green Hornet has some nice things to over. The Kato vision and the few explosions are well done – and slowmo always works in fights.
Other than that the ideas of Kato and the gimmicks in the car and in the weaponry are kind of nice. Last but not least Christoph Waltz is underutilized but still a nice addition to the cast. The few scenes with him are nice and it´s cool to see that he has some sparks of his Lambda role that brought him an Oscar. There he was obsessed with finding and killing jews, here he is obsessed with being scary. Nice thing to come back to a successful thing in a career to get some connections and references in the film.
Still The Green Hornet cannot sting the audience and is a flat movie with decent action and at least one good actor. Not good enough to be a good movie, but if you are ever bored as hell and need some not so serious superhero movie The Green Hornet can still provide a bit of fun…not much but if you are bored as hell you gotta try something.
Rating : 3 out of 10
Rating : 3 out of 10
Now after that review next weekend a review of oscar nominated film THe Social Network will hit the blog and after that the review of Inception will follow. The Kids are all right and Winter's Bone are planned as well, so stay tuned and keep on reading this blog if you like it.
If you wanna have the lasted updates and thoughts from me follow me on twitter : twitter.com/fanthaiza ! Updates for my blog and other thoughts will appear there!
If you wanna have the lasted updates and thoughts from me follow me on twitter : twitter.com/fanthaiza ! Updates for my blog and other thoughts will appear there!
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