Bring on the sequel! – ‘The Green Hornet’ Review

It’s always with some trepidation that I fork over the beefed up ticket price for a 3D movie, especially when it’s getting pretty consistent bad reviews and is showing an embarrassing score on the Tomatometer. But on the other hand it’s one of my favorite feelings at the movies to be watching something I thought was going to suck and see that it’s actually pretty freaking awesome.

Your opinion of Seth Rogen is probably going to determine a lot of your opinion about the movie, which seems to suggest to me that most professional critics don’t like Rogen. Personally I think he has a very unique brand of comedy that just strikes all the right chords for me.

It should be noted that Seth Rogen made some crucial changes to the central character in order to fit his iconography and likely his physicque (also be advised that he dropped 30 pounds for the role), so purists will find plenty to complain about. But for pure popcorn entertainment, I’m gonna argue that this is one of the best things in theaters right now.

Rogen plays Britt Reid, the party animal son of a super-serious newspaper magnate who’s trying to straighten out his son enough to take over the family business when he dies, or at least stop showing up blind drunk in the Los Angeles Sentinel, his own newspaper. When he dies suddenly and mysterious from a killer bee sting, Britt finds himself saddled with a responsibility that he had previously convinced himself would never quite reach him.

But true to his childish core, he decides that instead of manning up and getting in the captain’s chair, he should team up with Kato (Jay Chou), his dad’s almost weirdly handsome and freakishly cool mechanic/espresso man, don some masks and roam the streets of Los Angeles fighting crime. Makes sense, right?

Wait there’s more. Cameron Diaz plays Lenore Case, a 36-year-old journalist who applies for a temp position at the Sentinel but Britt hires her as a full-time writer, because seriously, what newspaper hires temps in their 30s? It’s a classic scene (“Don’t thank him, he did nothing!”) that exemplifies the hilarious writing that makes the movie so watchable despite its undeniable childish streak.

James Franco makes a good-natured appearance early in the movie as a bad-natured crime lord who makes the sad mistake of trying to intrude on the jurisdiction of well-established crime lord Chudnofsky (Christopher Waltz). Waltz is so good in this character, reprising the same smiling venomousness that he mastered in Inglorious Basterds, although despite the impressive scripting of The Green Hornet, you can tell it’s nothing close to the power of what Tarantino created in that movie. Nevertheless, Waltz plays the character so well that I wouldn’t mind seeing a spin-off just for that character. It’s gonna have to start off with some kind of appointment with a real good optician, though.

Jay Chou’s role of Kato, as you know, was originally played by Bruce Lee. He had some big shoes to fill and he does it well. He’s a tremendous pop star in Asia and is amazingly talented, although this is the first time I’ve seen him act. He played a concert at a stadium about a five-minute walk from where I used to live in Luoyang, China, and it was a gigantic hit. I didn’t go, but I heard it was fantastic.

It’s rumored that Chou was cast in the movie as a result of a video chat audition before anyone on the production team knew he was already a performer in Asia, but I’m not sure I believe it. That’s some piss-poor researching, if you ask me, but regardless, he’s already got a billion fans behind him, so casting him was not a bad decision at all from a business point of view!

I’m not familiar with the original radio show of the Green Hornet or any other past film or tv adaptations so I’m judging this movie entirely on its own merits, and I really think it’s much much better than the response that it’s gotten so far. I expect to see Jay Chou making many more appearances in American movies, he reminds me of a young Jackie Chan, but without all the spastic fight scenes.

Chou’s fight scenes are less comical, but no less over the top, which is why they’re so much fun. He seems to have some kind of Terminator-like super-power that’s never really explained or fleshed out, but no matter. It’s more than enough fun just watching him whip the crap out of everyone in sight. And also keep your eye out for a quick scene with Terminator 2's Eddie Furlong, how seems to be continuing his descent into permanent slobhood. 

I would also like to point out that they were nice enough to release The Green Hornet in January, which is usually the month that the studios reserve for unloading into theaters all the crappy movies that they don’t want to be remembered when awards season rolls around.

Notice, for example, that this week everyone is considering which 2010 movies are going to be nominated for Academy Awards and discussing last night’s Golden Globe winners. And is anyone talking about Daybreakers, Leap Year, Youth in Revolt, The Book of Eli, The Spy Next Door, The Tooth Fairy, Legion, Extraordinary Measures, Edge of Darkness, or When in Rome? Nope.

Then again, Daybreakers wasn’t all that bad, and The Tooth Fairy was hilarious. And while The Green Hornet is also not going to be pulling in a lot of awards this time next year, it’s also hilarious, and even better than not bad. See it!