Movie Review: The Green Hornet

This movie started being advertised around the same time as The Green Lantern. Since I am not a comic book aficionado, it was easy for me to confuse the two. This one is based on what began as a radio drama and eventually evolved into a television series, several movies (including this one), a comic book series, and several novels.[1] It is about a newspaper magnate who doubles as a masked vigilante with the help of his valet (and martial arts expert), Kato.[2] As a bonus, he always knows where to send his reporters for breaking crime news.

My verdict: Overall this was not that great of a movie. I was disappointed to see that the director was Michel Gondry, since some of his other work (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, commercials, music videos, etc.) has been quite impressive.[3] The comedy wasn't funny, the drama wasn't moving, and the action wasn't kinetic, and it had way too much profanity. Seth Rogen (who unfortunately also helped to write the script) has an obnoxious voice and his acting was, in a word, terrible. The only redeeming quality, for me, was the villain, Chudnofsky/Bloodnofsky, who was actually kind of an interesting (though perplexing) character. But that wasn't enough to make it worth watching.

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Notes:

[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green Hornet.

[2] I suspect that Inpsector Clouseau's assistant, Cato, in the Pink Panther series, was a spoof of this Kato.

[3] See, for example, this music video and this music video.

Image attributions:


Cuckoo Wasp (~Green Hornet) is by Pollinator, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cuckoo Wasp 0640.jpg.