The Review Den

Hey everyone, Bob here. I guess I should start with an introduction. I’m the night guy at Blockbuster and if you’ve been there in the last five years, you probably know me. I’ll pretty much watch every type of movie as long as it doesn’t have a couple standing back to back on the cover or a woman with the face of a horse in it. Actually, while I’m on the subject, I’m also going to rule out flicks starring women who have already gone through menopause and act in a sassy manner as this is just intended to nauseate the viewer (in my opinion.)

I just got back from seeing “The Green Hornet” and was (surprisingly) not disappointed. If you’re not familiar with the character, Seth Rogen (every Judd Apatow movie ever) plays Britt Reid, the playboy son of James Reid presumably the last unbiased news reporter and the owner of The Daily Sentinel. After his father dies unexpectedly, Britt decides to honor his family name by taking up arms against the criminals running the streets of Los Angeles. Of course, all super heroes without powers need a sidekick and Britt is no exception.

He quickly gains the assistance of his father’s old mechanic Kato (Jay Chou), who just happens to be an expert in martial arts and weapon creation. Anyway, so Britt and Kato take to the streets. Britt dons the moniker of The Green Hornet and Kato assists as his nameless sidekick. The Green Hornet differentiates himself as a hero in one very different way, he wishes to be seen as a villain. This allows for him to infiltrate the underworld and destroy it from the inside. The main villain in this world is Chudnovsky played by Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds.) Waltz manages to toe the line between extremely over the top and downright scary quite well, especially considering the fact that later in the movie he starts to refer to himself as Bloodnovsky.

Despite the fact that Hornet is a superhero movie and was marketed as a family film, the first 10 minutes will clearly show that it is a strong PG-13. In this reviewer’s opinion, there is quite an overuse of foul language. Obviously any movie starring Seth Rogen is going to have some semblance of comedy in it and this one is no exception. The problem lies in the fact that most of the comedy boils down to sex jokes and euphemisms. However, I was happy with the fact that unlike other superhero movies, Hornet allows itself to show that there are repercussions to what the heroes actually do. Most heroes tend to live in some fantasy world where the villain knows who they are and they the villains, but nothing seems to happen. In the Hornet’s world, however, which is one of violence, the filmmakers were not afraid to show that people do tend to die when violent things happen. Once again I do not recommend this one to families looking to bring the smaller kids out for a nice weekend movie.

Despite some of it’s faults, “The Green Hornet” succeeds in being a fun, albeit over the top, action comedy. Chou does a great job of filling Bruce Lee’s shoes as the butt-kicking sidekick and Seth Rogen was convincing while beating the crap out of people, though Kato does most of the work. The only other shortcomings were some ridiculous stunts that didn’t make sense, I’m looking at you setting off missiles while buried underground. In summation, “The Green Hornet” is a fun little hero flick, just make sure you leave the young ones at home.