Green Hornet delivers a comedy sting

January 14th, 2011

Film: The Green Hornet
Starring: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Cameron Diaz and Christoph Waltz
Director: Michael Gondry
Written by: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

Though the story of The Green Hornet has changed plot points throughout its number of reincarnations since it was born on the radio in the 1930s, 2011′s adaptation kept the skeleton story that runs through all versions of the comic series the same; the Green Hornet is Britt Reid, a newspaper tycoon who takes on the role of vigilante at night in order to clean up the streets of LA with help from his sidekick Kato. The duo’s car, the technologically advanced Black Beauty, is a common thread throughout the series.

With Seth Rogen and his writing partner Evan Goldberg as the mastermind’s behind the most recent update of the Dynamite Comics story, Rogen’s touch is noticeable all over the film. While many of Rogen’s films seem to have an abundance of over-the-top violence (Pineapple Express, Observe and Report), the action and fight scenes in The Green Hornet fit perfectly. As a true comedian Rogen is smart enough to not take all the good lines for himself, sharing them with newcomer to the US screen, Chinese music and movie star Jay Chou (Kato) and the hilariously un-scary bad guy Chudnofsky, played brilliantly by Christoph Waltz.

Britt Reid is a newspaper heir who seems to have modeled his life after what a Jersey Shore meets Gossip Girl crossover would look like. Never being close with his father and growing up without his mother, when his father dies unexpectedly from a bee sting, Britt is left unmoved and without any desire to take over his father’s newspaper, The Sentinel. After firing all the staff and realizing that included Kato, the man who makes his perfect coffee, Britt hires the young worker back and they quickly form a friendship over Kato’s work on Britt’s late father’s cars.

Out of Britt’s boredom and Kato’s master skills the two decide to take their newfound partnership to the streets in an attempt to combat LA crime, along the way infuriating the city’s resident crime lord Chudnofsky and his crooked DA, Scanlon. To drum up more attention for their efforts, Britt and Kato take over The Sentinel and hire personal assistant Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), who teaches the two criminals how to be criminals.

Though the addition of the 3D element to the film is completely unnecessary, the rest of the film has the perfect amount of action, comedy and a few comic-book inspired montages to keep audiences entertained. Just as the Scream films poked fun at themselves by explaining how to make a scary movie, The Green Hornet uses James Franco to explain to resident bad guy Chudnofsky just how, in fact, to be bad.

‘Really?’ moments in the film, such as Franco’s role, as well as Edward Furlong as a meth-lab owner, a newspaper tycoon owning what appears to be Batman’s garage and a Chinese orphan who is one degree away from Matt Damon’s character in Good Will Hunting, The Green Hornet is silly enough that audiences gladly accept these oddities.

Rogen and Chou make their oddball pairing work flawlessly, easily meshing their humour styles together and making their relationship as brothers, or xiong di, as Kato says, believable. Chou’s straight-man karate and machine specialist character is the perfect balance to Rogen’s immature, party-boy Reid. Chou’s first foray into North American English films is a slam dunk, possessing comedic timing, impressive martial art stunts and good looks that would make Kato-original Bruce Lee proud.

Rating: 7 Black Beauties out of 10

Tags: Cameron Diaz, Green Hornet, Jay Chou, movie reviews, seth rogen