The Green Hornet (2011)
Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on January 15, 2011 @ tonymacklin.net.
I thought only flies liked piles of dung, but hornets must, too.
Maybe that's the reason for the evacuated pile titled The Green Hornet.
When I first heard that Seth Rogen had been cast as The Green Hornet I had difficulty believing it.
He's miscast in the scriptless The Green Hornet. Where is Robert Downey, Jr. when we need him? But Rogen "co-wrote" it with Evan Goldberg, so legitimacy is not a factor. Maybe the producers thought they were getting Seth Green.
No, he's up for the remake of Citizen Kane. But he's going to have a hard time beating out David Spade.
Maybe the producers thought they were getting Eva Green -- who definitely would make a better Green Hornet. And Sarah Palin could be Mama Hornet.
A caveat: The Green Hornet was my favorite superhero. [My favorite western hero was the Durango Kid with Wild Bill Elliott.] The popular radio series The Green Hornet was made into a movie serial that showed on Saturday matinees in neighborhood theaters. Tootsie Rolls, Raisinettes, and Serials. Those were the days.
The Green Hornet is about Britt Reid -- grand-nephew of The Lone Ranger -- who becomes a crime fighter with the help of his sidekick Kato.
The original serial can be purchased for $23.96 from Critics' Choice video.
But now we have the movie -- budgeted well over $100 million. The serial is pulp, but it knew its roots. And the radio series is a classic. It's hard to tell what the movie is.
Grudgingly, I'm willing to suspend my preconceptions. One of my first criteria is does a movie accomplish what it sets out to do?
Since Rogen co-wrote it and "stars" in it, The Green Hornet is probably going to be a goof on superheroes. Since Michel Gondry directed it, it should at least be smart pretentiousness. He did the oft-acclaimed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). But The Green Hornet has no mind, spotless or otherwise.
I know the mention of anything from the past such as the original Green Hornet infuriates those viewers whose memory only goes back to last week -- "U R B S." I made that up -- it's actually 2 literate.
Do I really want to p.o. the Seth Rogen fratboys? If you're driven, you're driven. Seth Rogen plays Bruce Reid as a jerk, who tells Kato (Jay Chou) they are "cool." Contemporary comedy is such a gas. So who better to cast than grinning gasbag Seth Rogen?
Is it true that they cut the hysterical scene of Britt Reid puking in his hot tub?
The Green Hornet is a $100 million goof. It is another outrageously-budgeted contemporary movie with gifted actors -- Tom Wilkinson, Christoph Waltz, Edward James Olmos, Cameron Diaz -- searching for a nonexistent script amidst the piles of money as they dodge special effects.
In the 2011 world of nonsense The Green Hornet is colorless.
