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Bloody hell, another one of those reviews I like writing where I give a film I hadn’t seen in years a second chance. For now, let us revisit The Green Hornet with Seth Rogen and Jay Chou in the cast.
Now that I have mentioned Rogan’s name, an alarm bell should be ringing in your mind about the possible type of film you’re about to watch. Pardon all the interruptions, let’s continue diving deeper into this review.
As expected, I noticed a copy of The Green Hornet sealed in a shrink wrap in a Blu-ray for £1 and in a charitable shop. Surely, I picked up the film because I wanted to see if my sentiments were changed the second time around. Back in 2011, the film had entirely disappointed me.
This was the year, 2011 when superhero and comic adaptations were transitioning and starting to dominate the cinema. Marvel were almost near the ending of their phase one with first Thor and Captain America films. Other studios were still trying to play catchup with films such as the one I’m reviewing here and the green lantern.
I know this may seem strange, but I must add that the fact it was unused also was something that excited me. Yes. I can be peculiar at times.
A young child, Britt Reid, is chauffeur driven to a large office building, and the movie opens with him being introduced to this scene. This is the office of The Daily Sentinel, one of the leading newspapers in Los Angeles which is owned by his father, James.
Britt’s father James is embarrassed that Britt has been expelled from yet another school for fighting and wishes that his mother was alive to manage that situation. The reason why Britt’s father cannot help him is because he has to take care of the seven hundred and fifty employees working in a newspaper.
Now let us move ahead 20 years. Much to the anger of his father, Britt lives a bachelor lifestyle without any responsibility. After yet another night out, his father complains about him wasting his life and being a sloth with no goals.
Unfortunately, this was the last time he met his father, who died due to bee sting anaphylactic shock. Britt is handed the entire wealth and ostentatious newspaper.
Britt ends up firing every single employee in his household out of frustration, but one of them, Kato, who made his signature coffee, is then quickly rehired. It turns out that Kato is actually an exceptionally skilled mechanic who crafted his own unique coffee machine.
Kato lets Britt persuade him that he needs to put some meaning into his life. Together, they launch a campaign against crime. Kato also prefers to use the Imperial, a Chrysler luxury sedan, rather than any ordinary vehicle. He adds bulletproof glass and other tactical enhancements to it from Britt’s father’s car collection.
Beastian Brit furiously names himself The Green Hornet for the purposes of hunting after the man who he deems a ‘Russian gangster’, Benjamin Chudnofsky. This man Chudnofsky wants nothing more than to unit all crime factions for his own selfish benefits. That’s why Britt plans on using his father’s newspaper to spin plots about The green Hornet, saying that he poses as a villain doing good deeds for the world.
This will infuriate Chudnofsky, and because of that, a war will be waged between the two sides, something that Brit wasn’t prepared for or even sensed coming. His new hobby is now out of control!
The Green Hornet is, if I understand it correctly, a movie that borders on an “action comedy”. In separating them and, into those two components, handily divides the impression I had for this film on a global perspective.
I feel like there was just a string of Seth Rogen films before Ryan Reynolds came in with his comedy routine that was more or less identical across every movie (although I would argue it works best with Deadpool), but he seems to do the same character in every movie. If you watched a Rogen film, you knew what kind of character and comedy you were going to get. You’ve already seen the character before!
The Green Hornet is not different, and Rogen’s act in this film for me doesn’t really have that charm and appeal. I guess as a son of a rich guy with no responsibilities, his standard performance looks rather fine considering the role, but personally I found it rather borderline annoying.
I don’t completely dislike Rogen, for instance, he starred in Kevin Smith’s Zak and Miri Make A Porno, a film I found to be hilarious, three years ago. But then, I remain a Smith admirer.
Kato, portrayed by Jay Chou, a Taiwanese superstar with only a few roles in Hollywood, made his movie debut in The Green Hornet. While he isn’t a bad actor, his ability to display pure acting emotions is limited. Instead, he shines when there’s action. The fight choreography is engaging, but unfortunately, most of it was done by a stunt double so there’s a lot of driving to do.
As a side note, amazing is how the martial arts fights were shot. Everything Kato does in the fight happens at different rates of slow motion, and director Michel Gondry uses some sort of technique to amplify his reflexes. It is great and adds a certain charm to the average martial arts fight.
First off, the casting could not have been better for the part and Christoph Waltz plays Benjamin Chudnofsky. As I hope you will agree with me, Waltz is an incredible actor. For instance, the beginning of Inglourious Basterds guarantees a standalone definition of filmmaking.
Nevertheless, for the business, the bad guy character is interpreted as a man who is a bit ‘off’ and his losing control of his empire to the tactics of The Green Hornet. He tows the line of a comedic character and FYI, it was a mockery of Waltz’s professional abilities, particularly since he hardly makes an appearance until the final fight scena.
Appearing beardless, David Harbour takes on the role of D.A. Frank Scanlon. Looking at the list, here is yet another character who has rather little ‘film’ time but has an important role and is a phenomenal actor, and this was prior to becoming famous with Netflix’s Stranger Things.
Britt’s love interest is played by Cameron Diaz. It is too bad that she is not hugely important to the story, but she always shines with the short monologues she is given. Curiously, there seems to be a part where she says her age and I asked myself if that was a subtle insult to the whole idea of Hollywood and women – that they are covered as soon as they are too ‘old’ to be used. Possibly, I am pondering too much on that issue.
The other side of the coin of this film that I enjoyed was the action. Like I said before, the comedy didn’t really appeal to me, and my focus was on the many car chases featured in the movie. On the Blu-ray, there is a small bonus feature that details the work of Vic Armstrong, the second unit director of the film.
Armstrong’s life has revolved around working in the movie industry and if his work as a stuntman for Harrison Ford in the first three Indiana Jones films is anything to go by, he is very good at what he does. This guy is an expert in his field!
What I am attempting to point out is that almost everything you saw that involved vehicles was done practically. That is how much CGI input there was. Unlike the fast-paced movies people are used to nowadays, there is a nostalgic quality to this film’s editing because you just know everything is real. Considering this was a film shot in 2011, I expected the action to be less ‘real’ and more green screen work but to my surprise, it was not.
Sure, the car work during the climax went a little over the top, but it was still enjoyable to watch because you just knew that it was filmed without the help of computer effects (besides the ramps and wires).
So there you have it, a movie that I feel very conflicted about. The comedy was too much and the action was decent. I have zero knowledge about the original TV show from the 60s apart from Bruce Lee being casted as Kato. There are a couple of references to that fact which I really enjoyed because of how understated they are.
The Green Hornet is not awful but it’s definitely not the best. It lies in this weird type of space that I can only describe as better than average. There are far worse superhero origin films out there.
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