THE GREEN HORNET

The Green Hornet stars Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz, Cameron Diaz and Tom Wilkinson. Directed by Michel Gondry. Rated PG-13 with a running time of 1 hr. and 48 mins.

Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) is the son of LA's most prominent and respected media magnate and perfectly happy to maintain a directionless existence on the party scene until his father (Tom Wilkinson) mysteriously dies, leaving Britt his vast media empire. Striking an unlikely friendship with one of his father's more industrious and inventive employees, Kato (Jay Chou), they see their chance to do something meaningful for the first time in their lives: fight crime. But in order to do this, they decide to become criminals themselves protecting the law by breaking it, Britt becomes the vigilante The Green Hornet as he and Kato hit the streets.

Using all his ingenuity and skill, Kato builds the ultimate in advanced retro weaponry, The Black Beauty, an indestructible car equal parts firepower and horsepower. Rolling in a mobile fortress on wheels and striking the bad guys with Kato's clever gadgets, The Green Hornet and Kato quickly start making a name for themselves, and with the help of Britt's new secretary, Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), they begin hunting down the man who controls LA's gritty underworld: Benjamin Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz). But Chudnofsky has plans of his own: to swat down The Green Hornet once and for all.

When Seth Rogen was first announced to play the Green Hornet the internet was fueled with rage from fanboys who could not believe it. How would funny man Seth Rogen play the Green Hornet? Well let me tell you that their anger is justified. I have nothing against Rogen and in fact I really like his comedies and I think he is very funny. But why he thought he could pull of The Green Hornet is beyond me. First off he made the character Brit Reid/The Green Hornet a complete jerk. He was snobby and full of himself and just came off as completely annoying. So you already don't like him within the first 20 minutes and you really don't care what happens to him. I think another mistake about the movie was that they wanted to make it an action comedy. It had some cool action scenes but it wasn't funny at all. So when the supposed jokes come around i was just shaking my head. There was one point in the movie when Brit and Kato were fighting each other and Kato was kicking the shit out of Brit, it was really nice because I despised the character. It's nice that Seth Rogen lost weight for the role but he was just sticking out like a sore thumb in the action scenes and it just ruins the credibility of the movie. So there was some definite miss casting.

The rest of the cast was ok. I have to say that Jay Chou was pretty good as Kato. His fighting scenes were badass and unlike Rogen he was believable in the action scenes. The only problem I had with Chou was that in some scenes his english was very hard to understand. Cameron Diaz was just there doing well not much and I did enjoy Christoph Waltz as Chudnofsky. He was pretty funny and you could tell he was having run with his role. I also did enjoy the action. Jay Chou had some cool scenes kicking some ass. The climax was full of shoot outs and fighting which was pretty entertaining. But once again 3D failed to add anything special to my experience. Im still waiting for the movie I see in the 3D and walk out with my mind blown from how cool it looked. The Green Hornet was definitely not that. So If you must see this movie at all you can skip the 3D.

The Green Hornet was a missed opportunity for a cool action comedy. The biggest error was Seth Rogen. He wasn't funny and he made his character an unlikable annoying douche bag. Some cool action scenes and some decent work from Jay Chou and Christoph Waltz still isn't enough to save this movie. Pretty Disappointing.

C-