Written, produced, and starring Seth Rogen, The Green Hornet is a movie that was badly conceived, badly written, and crassly acted. It is not a well-crafted comedy nor a well-crafted action flick, reminding me of RED, the movie about the retired CIA agents that couldn’t figure out whether it wanted to be a thriller or a mockery.
Britt Reid (Rogen) is the spoiled son of an extremely wealthy newspaper owner. He has been both overindulged and emotionally starved by his widowed father who has no time for him. When his father dies unexpectedly, Britt is thrown into the world of newspaper editing, for which he has no time, no inclination, and no aptitude.
He decides to become important by being a hero. He will be a good guy. But that’s too scary, because if you’re a good guy, the bad guys will be after you. Brain wave: he’ll be a good guy who pretends to be a bad guy so that bad guys will not hurt him. This actually sounds like an interesting premise, except for one teeny weeny problem: he and his sidekick Kato actually do bad things.
In fact, in their first hero-outing, they kill a police officer, and commit a tremendous amount of property destruction. This is not the way to become a community hero. However, at least they rescue two anonymous, unidentifiable people from a group of thugs.
Heady with this success, Britt and Kato (Asian sidekick, played ably, but stereotypically, by Jay Chou) proceed to blow up cars, houses, and meth labs, killing everyone as they go. They do not feel bad about this. Nor do they ever again visit the idea of helping people.
Turns out the D.A. is the bad guy, and all kinds of horrendous destruction and death follow this revelation. All the while, we are treated to the supposed-to-be funny, but painfully crass acting of Mr. Rogen.
Cameron Diaz shows up as Journalism Barbie, no surprise here. All the usual jokes about her derriere and her hotness levels are made, as well as a few unfunny comments about how she is not aging all that well. I don’t know why Ms. Diaz takes this abuse, although my best bet is there is a lot of money in it, and if someone wants to mock me for several million dollars, I say, bring it on.
In the end, it seems to be all right to murder as many people as you like, cause the deaths of many, many others so that you can save your newspaper and kill the corrupt district attorney. Britt is not sorry for the mayhem, nor does he seem to realize he has committed any crimes.
The script is plain and uninteresting: no dry humor, no witty give-and-take, no smart comebacks. There is no love interest, no heroism, no saving-the-girl, no character development.
I don’t know who will watch this with enjoyment. Maybe it would be okay with the sound off, because there are a few interesting fight sequences and some big explosions.
One other small, but irritating, detail. The movie is supposedly set in Los Angeles, but we never see L.A. There are no views of the city or even iconic images such as City Hall or the skyline or the Chinese Theater or the Hollywood sign.
Defnitely don’t see this movie. If you insist on seeing it, you must not take your children. There is quite a lot of crass innuendo and one or two trashy sequences at the beginning.