"The Green Hornet" Review

The Green Hornet hits all the right marks to make it the first fun buddy-cop – well, sort of – movie of 2011.

The long-gestating remake of the 1960s TV show stars Seth Rogen (Knocked Up, Pineapple Express) as Britt Reid, the irresponsible, hard-partying son of newspaper editor James Reid (Tom Wilkinson). He is joined by Taiwanese pop sensation Jay Chou as Kato and Cameron Diaz as Lenore Chase.

As the movie opens, we learn very quickly that Britt’s relationship with his father is strained because he buries himself in his work as editor of The Daily Sentinel, L.A.’s largest family-owned newspaper. Flash forward twenty years and Britt spends his nights partying and making tabloid headlines.

Everything changes when James Reid dies from an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Britt meets Kato, his father’s mechanic, who also happens to be an inventor, weapons expert, martial-arts extraordinaire, all-around genius and cappuccino guru. Together they devise a plan to wage a war on L.A.’s criminal underworld by dressing like masked superheroes.

The interesting thing about the Green Hornet is that instead of clearly being a hero, they pose as criminals who want to take over L.A.’s gangs. This attracts the attention of L.A.’s criminal mastermind, Chudnofsky, played by Academy-Award winner Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds), and eventually things escalate into a full-blown gang war.

Full disclosure: I’ve never seen the original The Green Hornet TV show, nor listened to the radio drama so I went into this movie with absolutely no preconceived notions of who the characters were supposed to be, or how the story should’ve been executed. That being said, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

I certainly had my doubts about Seth Rogen playing anything close to a super hero, but in the movie they make it clear that Kato is really the talent. In that context, Rogen makes a lot more sense because Britt spends most of the movie fumbling around trying to be relevant. It isn’t until the very end that he starts to carry his own weight.

The on-screen chemistry between Rogen and Chou adds a great levity to the movie, and the scenes with the two of them are definitely the most fun to watch. They banter and bicker like a married couple, continuing the bromantic trend we’ve seen develop in recent years.

The best thing about The Green Hornet is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously – a running gag is whether or not Chudnofsky is scary enough as a villain. He decides it isn’t and changes his name to Bloodnofsky. In the end, it’s that sense of humor that makes the movie a pleasure to watch.

7.5 of 10