Friday, November 4, 2011

The Green Hornet

I'm a sucker for super hero movies.  I don't enjoy the dark, brooding heroes so much, like Batman.  Goofy heroes suit me fine.  I wasn't previously familiar with the Green Hornet radio and television shows, so I can't vouch for whether The Green Hornet movie's goofiness captures the personality of those earlier incarnations.  I can vouch for this: Seth Rogen captures the personality he portrays in his other movies, that of an annoying, overgrown kid, who's mildly funny but not funny enough not to be annoying.
Jay Chou as Kato outshines Rogen.
In The Green Hornet, he plays Britt Reid, the good-for-nothing playboy son of a newspaper publisher.  Due to his father's unexpected death, he is thrust into the role of publisher.  Not satisfied with publishing stories in the paper about crime, he decides to become a crime fighter.  It just so happens that his father's chauffeur, Kato, is a martial arts expert and an engineer/inventor/weapons expert who can make anything; Kato becomes Reid's sidekick, and together they fight crime in some rather unorthodox ways.  Their crime fighting exploits are entertaining, the action and special effects are well done, and the story is actually OK.  Rogen doesn't quite kill the movie, but I would have liked it much better without him.  I guess I can handle action stars adding comedy better than I can handle comedy stars doing action.  At least in this case.

Bottom line, 2 stars.

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