The Green Hornet (2011)

Simply Perfect

Great Film overall

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

What a waste of time and money and some talent. This could have been such a great re-boot!

Some limited intellect thought building a story on stereotypes would be funny. It might be. This one is not even a story. And the end result is quite tasteless.So you have the white yahoo whom his father never loved, but with a lot of money. Like Batman, Iron Man, and many others. Actually these creative types standing behind the so called great comics are anything but creative, they are some sort of Sandra Brown with a writer's block. And the yahoo likes a girl. She must be tall, but not taller than him, white, blonde and single. Okay. These are the limited tastes of the comics crowd so why not of the yahoo as well? But here the acceptable part ends. The creative guy is an Asian guy who even says he does not speak English well. Only the Asian guy is a servant and remains a servant. The Russian is the criminal overlord with a self esteem problem. And so on.And even the car chase is dull. Never mind this is a story set up back in 1946 when there was no sex outside marriage and there were no police helicopters.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

(59%) Yes it may rattle along at times, and the timing might be a little off, but this really isn't a bad little comedy/action movie. I'm no Seth Rogen fan but he's at least watchable and clearly trying to do his best, while offering some amusing lines along the way. The direction is solid even during the more frantic parts, and yes the plot is nothing that great or anything new, but it's at the very least coherent and something worth getting invested into. Besides Cameron Diaz's character being largely pointless, and the run time being overly long by about 20 or so minutes, this is consistently entertaining and a decent portion better than I first assumed before watching it.

Considering the rich history of a character such as "The Green Hornet", to find out that there was going to be a higher emphasis on comedy than classic pulp-noir storytelling I admit to being disappointed. Yet this adaptation is not entirely terrible either, and as always see it in 2D regardless of the 3D "Kato Vision". Besides that, the film was OK. Rather than try to be just an average street hero movie it tries to be a hero, comedy and action movie, but lacks the kind of formula many of MARVEL's recent efforts have offered. The story never goes anywhere, and I'm quite surprised to find that aspect lacking from a film directed by Michel Gondry.What I do enjoy is that Seth Rogen makes up half the charm of this picture, but Cameron Diaz feels like she's there just for being Cameron Diaz. Jay Chou steals the show as Kato, of course he's no Bruce Lee, but his laid back attitude and collective calm are very enjoyable to watch. Finally coming straight off of "Inglourious Basterds" (2009), Christoph Waltz's performance surprisingly made me laugh, and it's always funny to see a power hungry man feel so down via a mid-life crisis.The gadgets looked great and functional, and the final 20 minutes where a car chase results with a top office floor being destroyed is a spectacle of destruction. I'd find it difficult to believe if you couldn't find one moment you liked in that entire sequence.Final Verdict: I've been a big "Hornet" fan for a long time, yet I feel this movie is far from what the fans would want from the source material. I wanted to see two people from other ends of the world slap on a mask and fight crime, respecting the origins of the 1930's serials and updating them for the modern time. They've done it fantastically in the recent comic books, but you do & don't get that with this movie. 5/10.