Director: Michel Gondry
Stars: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Edward James Olmos, Cameron Diaz, Tom Wilkinson, Christoph Waltz
Rating: Rated PG-13 for sequences of violent action, language, sensuality and drug content.
Runtime: 119 minutes
Studio: Sony Pictures

Super heroes posing as bad guys , who promote themselves as bad guys, while serving as good guys. Did you say “Huh”? Try practicing that phrase for this entire film. The Green Hornet trailer featuring Seth Rogen acting like a goofy, extra silly Seth Rogen, and Jay Chou as Kato, who has the most interesting action scenes, and quite frankly is the star of the film. Rogen is Chou’s prop, though the movie tries to position the character’s in the opposite way.



The film is held up by cool special effects-Kato flips off a few beer bottle caps and whizzes them around the room. The action scenes are packed with hip martial arts moves, and giant guns; the sweet car collection is neverending, and the clothes even standout in several scenes. Okay! I said something nice about The Green Hornet movie. Remember this!

Overall, the film characterizes wild, rich, man-child Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) as a guy who doesn’t get along with his father, but inherits his father’s fortune, which includes a news paper empire. Eventually, Reid decides to take his fortune and “be a superhero”. While that is a noble cause indeed, Reid has the cash, and enlists his father’s man servant, Kato, (Chou) to be the brains of the operation.

The two fight a host of actual bad guys, but all the while a sub story played in my head. Under the shady storyline and the horrid acting is another story, one that I am certain Hollywood was not trying to fund. A tale of reality and truth about the United States and our Asian counterparts.

Kato, the Green Hornet’s Asian partner/sidekick is smarter than American Britt Reid, The Green Hornet. By day Reid is an elite American, who is dumb and does not know how to do anything for himself. Stereotypes in full force, in the film, Kato, the Asian guy can cook, make incredible coffee, create crime fighting machines and fight 12 guys at one time. The America guy, talks a lot, hits on woman who don’t want him and spends his daddy’s money. All this and Kato, does not speak English very well. Can you hear the truthful overtones? Is this film really a futuristic drama about America?

Reid, ever the idiot, constantly insults, yet romantically pursues, Cameron Diaz. I never thought I’d see the day when Cameron Diaz is the butt of age jokes because her character, Lenore Case is 36- years old. It is a comedy you say? I say then do or say something FUNNY!

More than any entertainment value, or lack thereof The Green Hornet is loud. The acting is loud, the fighting and shooting is loud, the ignorance of the main character is loud, and all the time I was watching this, I was wondering if the money spent to make and market this fiasco would have been better spent feeding and clothing the citizens of a country in need.

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”,” Be Kind Rewind”, and “The Science of Sleep” are all wonderful, left of center, films by Director Michel Gondry, what happen with this effort is a mystery. But while others might laugh at this supposed action comedy, for me it simply evokes a strange level of pity and sadness.