The Green Hornet

January 23, 2011

I am not familiar with the old Green Hornet. I only know that he was a crime fighter of some sort, in a cool car, and with a sidekick Kato played by no less than martial arts legend Bruce Lee. I was not really planning to watch this relaunch of an old character, but I guess curiosity got the better of me.

Britt Reid (Seth Rogan) is a lazy, good-for-nothing son of a very rich newspaper publisher. When his father suddenly dies of a bee sting, Britt was thrust into a business he knew nothing about. One day, he discovers the awesome car, gadget and martial arts skills of his father's aide Kato (Jay Chou). He appoints Kato as his sidekick, and cluelessly decides to be the Green Hornet, taking on the criminal elements of the city led by the insecure Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz).

I have no idea if this was anything like the Hornet of old, but I am thinking it isn't. Seth Rogan plays Hornet so annoyingly stupid and arrogant. He also has a foul mouth on him, which I do not know was meant to be cool (it was not). Jay Chou while quite adept in his action scenes, has a blank unemotional face for an actor. His Kato though was quite entertaining and pretty cool to watch. Christoph Waltz was quite funny really, the way his deadly character was written. As the girl causing friction between the two partners, Cameron Diaz seemed not to fit in too well. I never thought I could say this about the charming Ms. Diaz, but she seemed too old for the part.

Despite these cons though, the movie as a whole was quite actually fun to watch, especially with the explosive action scenes and exciting car chase scenes. Just do not expect too much out of this light movie and you will be entertained. You know they did not take themselves too seriously, as such, so shouldn't you.