There's a scene in The Green Hornet where the Hornet (Seth Rogan) and sidekick Kato (Taiwanese movie and pop star Jay Chou) barge into his secretary's house (Cameron Diaz) to elude the police. He screams, "We don't know what we're doing!" That sums up this mess of an action-comedy movie, which doesn't deliver much laughter or adrenalin.
The Green Hornet was a radio series, then a comic book, and then a '60s TV series that launched the career of Bruce Lee; he played Kato. Co-writer/co-producer Rogan puts a new spin on the Kato/Hornet relationship by making Kato the smart one. Problem is, Rogan's Britt Reid (the Hornet's alter ego) is too much of a moron; he's a spoiled rich boy who inherits his daddy's newspaper, becomes a masked superhero for fun and stays stupid.
Another problem is that Chou is hard to understand and delivers a weak performance; he never gels with Rogan. Reid recruits Cameron Diaz as his secretary, but she has little to do apart from looking hot and driving a wedge between the Hornet and Kato. Bad guy Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz of Inglourious Basterds) plays a villain so ridiculous that it's impossible to take him seriously.
The Green Hornet feels like a comic book movie made by Judd Apatow, except that it's directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), who proves he has no clue how to direct action. He blows up a lot of buildings, crashes a number of cars and kills a bunch of people in loud, blinding explosions that even a 3D presentation can't enhance. The violence is useless, stupid and repetitive. The Green Hornet is simply brutal.
(Sony)The Green Hornet was a radio series, then a comic book, and then a '60s TV series that launched the career of Bruce Lee; he played Kato. Co-writer/co-producer Rogan puts a new spin on the Kato/Hornet relationship by making Kato the smart one. Problem is, Rogan's Britt Reid (the Hornet's alter ego) is too much of a moron; he's a spoiled rich boy who inherits his daddy's newspaper, becomes a masked superhero for fun and stays stupid.
Another problem is that Chou is hard to understand and delivers a weak performance; he never gels with Rogan. Reid recruits Cameron Diaz as his secretary, but she has little to do apart from looking hot and driving a wedge between the Hornet and Kato. Bad guy Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz of Inglourious Basterds) plays a villain so ridiculous that it's impossible to take him seriously.
The Green Hornet feels like a comic book movie made by Judd Apatow, except that it's directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), who proves he has no clue how to direct action. He blows up a lot of buildings, crashes a number of cars and kills a bunch of people in loud, blinding explosions that even a 3D presentation can't enhance. The violence is useless, stupid and repetitive. The Green Hornet is simply brutal.