I admire Seth Rogen’s attempt to hand the superhero genre a face lift. Through The Green Hornet, Rogen was given free rein to breathe new life into a project that had been gestating in the stomach of Hollywood for well over a decade. One could certainly see Rogen’s ambition on display. He not only took on the lead role of Britt Reid (aka The Green Hornet), a raucous party boy who is in line to receive his father’s massive newspaper fortune, but he also wrote the screenplay with his writing partner Evan Goldberg. Goldberg and Rogen were able to construct a screenplay that alters comic-book conventions to a degree. The alterations are not overwhelming by any stretch of the imagination, but the seeds of change are planted and recognized. Yet, what the screenplay fails to do is give the film’s characters proper motivation to propel themselves into the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles.
The film opens up on a young Britt Reid being berated by his news tycoon father (Tom Wilkinson). The scene awkwardly plays out as father and son work clichés out of their system. After the silly interaction, the scene ends on a played out symbolic gesture. Parts of me wish this scene was cut, but I digress. After the lackluster opening, we’re off to present day where an adult Britt Reid fuels his life with shallow partying and making love to women he probably shouldn’t be getting. Britt makes mistake after mistake, which makes this viewer wonder why his father even bothers supporting his son, but this notion goes unaddressed. After the death of his father and meeting his father’s mechanic named Kato (Jay Chou), Britt, perhaps out of his drunken stupor, decides he wants to take on crime. Why Britt wants to do this isn’t entirely clear, nor is Kato’s intentions, which is all the more damning considering he’s the one who does all the work. Nonetheless, both men don masks and build a ridiculous ride to assist in their neighborhood watches. In their unlawful attempts to reinforce the law, Kato and Britt advertently piss off LA’s most dangerous crime enthusiast, Benjamin Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz).
Chudnofsky himself is a fun character simply because he’s a villain going through an identity crisis. Playing this identity issue up to a high degree is the charming Christoph Waltz. In an attempt to stay ahead of Chudnofsky and to further the Green Hornet’s reach, Britt Reid hires Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz) to be his assistant and researcher. Lenore unwittingly provides Britt with information that helps his Green Hornet counterpart, but that’s about all she does. Oh, and she also lazily represents the wedge that exists between Britt and Kato. Lenore at times is an enjoyable folly considering she is probably the first female character in superhero film history that doesn’t fall for the masked Don Juan, but her presence as a dramatic rift doesn’t entirely work. This is in part because the rift itself is underwritten, but also because the partnership between Brit and Kato doesn’t feel like it would exist anyways. Although the script lacks some semblance of reasoning, it does feature an assortment of sight gags and playful banter that escalates the film’s level of enjoyment. It’s too bad that director Michel Gondry doesn’t match this.
Michel Gondry, long known for being an inventive and visionary director, is nearly non-existent in this film. Aside from fight sequences featuring ‘Kato Vision’, where time slows and Kato’s attacks are bolstered by a targeting system, Gondry’s vision feels snuffed out. It’s unknown whether Gondry’s usual quirks were hindered by the studio system or creative differences arrived between his vision and Rogen’s screenplay. Either way, Gondry is oddly subdued with his visual panache and energy. With his flair being smothered, the film suffers. With a lack of proper motivation and the fun energy of Gondry being thrown to the wayside, The Green Hornet, despite some colorful moments, feels like a missed opportunity. Nothing entirely works and for all intents and purposes, the film probably should’ve stayed on the shelf.
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