003. >> The Green Hornet: A Review

Title: The Green Hornet
Format: Movie (in theaters)
Release Date: January 14th, 2011
Rating: PG-13
Synopsis: Party Boy Britt Reid's life suddenly changes when his media mogul father suddenly dies from a bizarre bee allergy. Finding himself bored with his life, Britt decides to make a difference in the world by fighting crime. The catch? He's going to pretend to be a bad guy. So he creates the Green Hornet.


Review                      

I was excited to see this movie because I'm a big fan of both Seth Rogen and Jay Chou so I wanted to see how they would both come together. The movie trailers promised a lot of action and snappy dialogue. Unfortunately, the movie didn't quite deliver.

I watched the movie in 2D format and I could definitely tell that it was made for 3D. The fight scenes were exaggerated so 3D viewers could enjoy objects and people flying at them. There was a lot of action but it all blended together. Some scenes didn't seem to have much of a point other than to show off fancy explosions and karate moves. It made the movie disjointed and somewhat boring because there was nothing to be invested in.

With most movies you are invested in the main character. However, I found Britt pretty insufferable for most of the movie. He was selfish, even when trying to save people, apparently. He was dumb. He was terrible about being a super hero, even with all the fancy gadgets. I guess that was the point but his path to redemption took way too long. The movie is nearly two hours and it really shows.

The plot is thin at best, especially when they come up with their great idea to fight crime while they are drunk. Then escaping a police chase after they caused the police car to crash into a bus and flip over while going like 100 miles per hour is just so cool. I didn't quite buy that. I thought too many innocent people were hurt or put in the path of danger for a superhero movie.

The bright spot of the movie was Kato. Despite Jay Chou's clearly tenuous grasp on the English language I thought he did very well with his lines and his reaction shots were very amusing. Although his martial arts skills were a little hard to swallow they were mostly fun. I liked how Kato was unapologetic about being the brains of the operation. Kato provided a lot of energy and spirit to the movie. He was the highlight for me.

Cameron Diaz was also in the movie. She was looking kind of old when compared to her younger co-stars. That was my main impression of her.

My favorite part was when Kato and Britt got drunk together and then Kato was like *mumble mumble mumble* and Britt said, "Dude, you're speaking Chinese." lmao, I thought it was funny.
 
Bottom Line: Wait for the dollar theater or Netflix Instant View for this one!




Jay Chou learned English in one month. What?! That's amazing!