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Posts: 4573
Join Date: May 2005
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The Green Hornet earned $34 million during its opening weekend in the U.S. Part of that money was mine, as the wife and I went to see it. No 3D for me this time. Saw Yogi Bear in 3D and thought it worked fine for a cartoon, but I'm not so sure about 3D for completely live action movies.
I'm going to try and discuss the Green Hornet without giving too much away here. Basically, over all I had a ball watching this movie. I think my wife liked it too, except she thought they cussed a little much for her taste, and one of the last scenes was a little gruesome.
It was basically everything you want on a movie night. Action, comedy, explosions, and a whole lot of martial arts awesome type moves. Oh, and don't forget about the car, the Black Beauty. Who wouldn't love to have a car equipped with machine guns, rocket launchers, and has the ability to destroy any red light camera by the push of a button. The car alone made the movie worth seeing.
I read that 12 Chrysler Imperials from the years 65-67 were used for the making of this movie. (source: http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2010/07/24/green-hornets-car-we-test-drive-black-beauty-at-comic-con/) The article says that the guns on the movie car actually work, believe it or not. It says you can get one for less than 10,000 and they are powerful cars.
Anyway back to the movie, Seth Rogen was not a bad Green Hornet, just different. If he played the Lone Ranger the way he played the Green Hornet I'd be mad, but he is playing a modern playboy guy who becomes a noble type tough superhero dude. So when he acts like a jerk who's been spoiled rotten all his life, well that kind of fits a modern day, rich kid these days doesn't it? But, like I said when they do the Lone Ranger, don't hire Seth Rogen or some comedian play him. He needs to be a cowboy type.
Kato was played by a super pop star from Asia named Jay Chou. It's my understanding he doesn't really have a martial arts background, but it looked like he did on screen. As far as I was concerned, Bruce Lee was up there fighting. You'll notice Kato does some drawings, and one of them is a sketch of Bruce Lee. I just knew somebody was going to say, this Kato guy fights like Bruce Lee, but nobody did. He did pull one of Bruce Lee's signature moves as well, an extremely close distance fist attack sending an opponent flying. Awesome tribute to Bruce Lee!
The best thing about this movie is you get a feeling that the characters are enjoying being superheroes, and that, to me, makes it all the more fun. Sure Batman and all his misery and brooding are cool, but I have the most fun when the hero shows us the viewer a taste of how it feels to be a superhero. I mean how would you act if you could fight like Kato and drive a car like the Black Beauty? Would you brood like Batman all the time. Heck, why is Batman so dang mad all the time. Life is rough for him, a billion dollars in the bank and all the chicks in the world who dig his car, cars, I should say.
The villain, Chudnofsky, was just as evil as you want in super villain. He shoots and blows up anybody who even looks at him cross eyed. James Franco does a cameo as a bad guy. You got to see how well that turns out for him, when he makes fun of Chudnofsky's name among other things.
Edward James Olmos from Miami Vice did a great job of keeping things grounded in reality. His serious, mature character kind of kept it feeling real with his talk about journalistic responsibility. His character's deal was trying to reign in Britt Reid's misuse of the newspaper to push the Green Hornet's adventures. Of course by not listening to Olmos' character Axford, Reid learns a valuable lesson the hard way.
Bottom line, if you want adventure, close calls, explosions, martial arts, and lots of crazy fun, then watch this movie. If you want somber serious brooding action then maybe not. Just depends if your primary objective in a movie night is fun, or not.
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and a 7.5 out of 10.
