The Green Hornet

Managed to catch this super-hyped movie saturday night. Here's the review.

Synopsis: The son of media giant Tom Wilkinson grows up under the reign of an uncaring and hateful father. 28 years in to his life, he's grown in to a childish slacker, who has done little other than party. His father dies from an allergic reaction to a bee sting and this leave Britt Reid in charge of the new corporation. After waking up to unusually bad coffee, he meets Kato, a street-raised hyper-intelligent martial arts master who works magic with cars. After a night of drunken debauchery, the two bond and become friends. Out of hate for Tom Wilkinson, and an accidental crime-fighting, the two formulate a plot to pose as criminals so that they can further destroy the crime in the city. What starts out as an innocent, drunken plan, turns in to a full-scale war with a city known crime boss, Benjamin Chudnofsky. The more havoc the two reek, the closer they get to a much larger conspiracy.

Review: Well I must warn you, if you walk in to this movie expecting it to be as great as the classic Green Hornet, you will be extremely disappointed. But this is not, necessarily a bad movie. This movie did not try to copy the original, and it shows. As one would expect from a Seth Rogen comedy, there is a significant amount of low-brow humor and slapstick. The plot was nothing to write home about, but the comedic performances by Seth Rogen and Christoph Waltz performed admirably. There was also a forgettable Cameron Diaz role, and Jay Chou had little to say throughout the movie. In fact, Seth Rogen's constant belittling and using of Jay Chou often led the audience to feel sorry for Chou, and come to resent Seth Rogen's character. With Britt Reid being the main character, this created a confusing dynamic that detached viewers from the film, emotionally. Now while the comedy was decent, the action scenes were superb. They were fantastically entertaining, with just enough tongue-in-cheek action for you to enjoy yourself. Overall, the movie suffered from Michael Gondry's poor direction and lackluster plot, but managed to salvage itself with amusing dialogue and exciting action scenes. Due to the complete lack of movies in January, this movie is a great breath of fresh air. Although, do NOT see it in 3-D. While I normally say this, I've read reviews that said about 20 minutes of the movie were actually 3-D. So don't waste your money.


Here's the Trailer