The Green Hornet Review: A Swarm of Disappointment

As awards season in Hollywood gears up for its time in the spotlight, the multiplexes are beginning to bundle up in preparation for the winter doldrums Oscar season has to offer. Come January, the slew of For-Your-Consideration ploys arrive to both crowd ad-space and help distract moviegoers from the tepid offerings arriving at a theater near you.  As the studios churn out drivel of varying degrees, while award campaigns  (for better movies that came out months ago) reach their apex, it can be difficult to muster enthusiasm for a tired, long-shelved comic book caper that’s seen a revolving door of skeptical participants over the years.

A modern film adaptation of The Green Hornet 1930s radio show and subsequent comic books and TV series had been in the works since the 1990s, when Tinseltown players from George Clooney and Jet Li to Stephen Chow and Kevin Smith were in talks to bring the second-most well-known masked vigilante to the big screen. When word got out circa 2008 that Seth Rogen, then known mostly as the gold-hearted schlub from Knocked Up, had landed the role of wealthy, ne’er-do-well newspaper publisher Britt Reid (the Green Hornet’s answer to Bruce Wayne), the buzz surrounding Hornet came in the form of deafening protests from incredulous fans. Seriously, they cried. That guy?

After Michel Gondry, the visual wizard behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, was finally attached to direct, however, the hope for an innovative, superhero shake-up of an increasingly sated film market seemed brighter. Unfortunately, in spite of the separate talents both Rogen and Gondry have to offer in other areas, both men seem woefully out of place in this plodding and shockingly vapid attempt to introduce yet another crime-fighting crusader to the genre’s already crowded canon. The result proves a bewilderingly inconsistent romp that is neither realistic nor fantastical, neither gritty nor cartoonish, but altogether baffling in its mediocrity.

The world into which Rogen’s aimless, hard-partying trust fund kid is thrust when his media mogul father (a sadly wasted Tom Wilkinson) suddenly, mysteriously dies is one that evokes little sense of specific time and place. While modern technology and language are implemented, the film’s tenuous attempts to satirize the information age fall flat with anachronistic references to the influential power of newspapers. 20^th century much? Similarly, even the city’s criminal underbelly, as led by an amusingly deadpan Christoph Waltz (who, fresh off his Inglourious Basterds glory, swooped in to sub for Nicolas Cage last minute) as the unpronounceable Chudnofsky, seems to be unaware of the changing times — his brilliant idea to join the ranks of the incognito alter-egos results in an outfit that looks like Dick Tracy meets Saturday Night Fever, and I don’t think the laughs are intentional.

Between the unfortunate sartorial choices and the endless supply of bloated, dude-laden diatribe – the latter courtesy of Rogen’s bellowing voice and meandering pen (he co-wrote the script with business partner Evan Goldberg) – the introduction of Britt’s eventual sidekick, Kato (Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou), mercifully provides the audience with perhaps the only reason to pay any attention. Britt had only known Kato from the intricately brewed cappuccinos left by his bedside each morning, but once the two decide to form a crime-fighting duo in the wake of Britt’s grief and Kato’s unemployment, the film’s resulting surge in genuine momentum helps the rest of the plot at least bob the surface of coherence. Kato, the “human Swiss Army knife,” builds a souped-up getaway vehicle they dub the Black Beauty, which enables them to evade the cops while posing as criminals themselves to gain notoriety in the media and hopeful access to targeted thugs’ turf. In the midst of this existential identity crisis and rebirth, Britt discovers scandal underneath the golden legacy of his powerful father, and I suppose is meant to have found a way to add meaning to his own life through exposing this truth. How profound.

Gondry whips out a few of his noted stylistic quirks to remind the audience he directed the movie, but the use of his visual calling card in lieu of an articulate narrative doesn’t a compelling movie make. I won’t waste the time or space to discuss the utterly unfortunate decision to delay the film’s release even further in order to slap on unnecessary 3-D, either. All extraneous effects aside, The Green Hornet displays the scope of its discombobulation via the jilted, strangely rambling dialogue and hapless structure at its core that fails to engage the viewer as a whole, in spite of the occasionally entertaining sequence. As the at-a-crossroads Britt, Rogen’s decision to portray the reformed aimless playboy as a bumbling man-child fails to elicit any audience empathy, leaving The Green Hornet with no one to sting but him.

Photo by Jaimie Trueblood – © 2010 Columbia Pictures Industries