This big screen adaptation had me nervous, I won’t lie. However, The Green Hornet lived up to the trailer promises with this blockbuster comedy and thriller. I was on the edge of my seat with suspense from the action scenes in this movie, which were intense. Add to that comedic antics everywhere and this movie presents a great experience.
The plot for the The Green Hornet is complex, yet straightforward at the same time. The movie opens with the normal father and child interaction present in every crime fighter movie that I can think of. However, in this one the father does so in a completely uninspiring way. This leads to Britt Reid, Seth Rogen, the main character, being less than motivated 20 years later. Britt is a party boy, living in his father’s pool house. Unfortunately, Britt’s father James Reid suddenly dies from a bee sting; meaning that Britt is now in charge of The Daily Sentinel that his father owned. While this would normally lead to mo problems, Britt was not raised to succeed his father and his party boy lifestyle leads him to questioning his role. While this is going on, Britt begins building a friendship with Kato, his father’s mechanic. After a few drinks, both men admitted that they thought James Reid was a dick and decided to go vandalize his gravesite. While they are doing this, the two masked vandals stop a mugging. Unfortunately, the police believe that they are the criminals and proceed to chase Britt and Kato throughout the streets of LA.
Once the duo finally get back to the mansion, Britt and Kato reminisce about protecting the innocents. This elation at actually stopping a crime makes Britt decide to become a masked hero. Eventually, Kato agrees and the two decide to take down Benjamin Chudnofsky who is the boss of bosses in the LA underground. To this end, Kato begins working on the Black Beauty, a tricked out gadget car that would have even the most illustrious Q salivating at all of the gizmos and gadgets. Also, Britt decides to use his media empire as a way to get the news about the Green Hornet buzzing among the underworld. The two, semi-incompetent heroes catch a break in their crime fighting lessons when Britt hires a new assistant Lenore Case, played by Cameron Diaz. Lenore, who was a criminology major begins innocently talking about the steps that she thinks these masked “villains” will take next. Unwittingly, she tells the Green Hornet and Kato the exact steps needed to take down the bosses, starting with going after several of Chudnofsky’s meth labs.
In the daylight world, Britt continues to hit on and asks out Lenore. However, after shooting him down she invites Kato to dinner. This mixture of both men going after the same woman leads to a strained partnership. This is compounded by the fact that while at dinner, Kato picks up some information that criminals try to lure their opponents into traps in order to kill them. Unfortunately, Britt is feeling overshadowed by Kato and so insists on doing everything himself and making Kato go along with his plans. It turns out that Kato is right and Chudnofsky is setting a trap for the masked duo. After several attempts by the villains, The Green Hornet and Kato are finally able to escape back to the mansion. The duo begin to fight, both emotionally and physically. After a long argument, and Kato implying him and Lenore were an item, Britt fires the both of them.
While Britt is working, he finds out that DA Scanlon is corrupt. To help uncover the truth, he goes to Lenore and begs her to come back. She helps him to put the pieces together and they decide to take Scanlon down with a story on him. This is helped when Scanlon asks Britt to meet him for dinner to discuss how to downplay crime in the city. While this is going on, Kato, as the Green Hornet, is emailing Chudnofsky talking about becoming partners. Chudnofsky wants the Green Hornet to kill Britt. After some conversation, the new “Hornet” agrees and heads to the restaurant. In a twist, Kato attacks Chudnofsky’s men; allowing Britt to escape and expose Scanlon. The Green Hornet and his sidekick Kato jump in their Black Beauty and make a dash for the Daily Sentinel to get the word out. The resulting fight…both through the streets of LA and the halls of the Daily Sentinel. I won’t tell you what happens next, but the duo end up hiding out at Lenore’s house with a shot Green Hornet. She finally learns of their secret identities and that she is the mastermind behind the Green Hornet. After this, she decides to help them. Finally, Britt and Kato decide to help protect the law by continuing to break it.
I won’t go into the majority of subplots or side stories because there are more than a few; such as Britt’s father issues throughout the entire movie. However there is one subplot that I want to discuss, just because it made the movie for me. The quintessential love story present in virtually every super hero movie in existence had a twist in The Green Hornet. The hero did not get the girl. No matter how hard he tried, and Britt did try, there was no way that Lenore was getting swept off her feet. This humorous and unexpected slant to the story made me giggle with glee. I will admit, sometimes the hero getting the girl is good; but when it becomes expected I get bored with seeing it. By having this twist, I was reinvigorated and even more interested in the The Green Hornet.
The cast for The Green Hornet surprised me as much as the movie itself did. The main billet went to Seth Rogen, which was a shock casting him as an action star. Rogen did an admirable job in this movie, however he was not the person that I would have chosen to play the Green Hornet. He brought his usual corny style of comedy and facial gestures to the movie, and the role designed for him. An expected twist, since he was one of the writers and wrote the part for himself. I have never thought of the Green Hornet as an idiot or buffoon, which is exactly how Rogen played the part. As I said, Rogen was wrong for this role, but he did not stink like I thought he would. This is majorly due to Jay Chou, who played Kato. This was Chou’s first major role in American cinema and did an amazing job playing the “assistant” straight man to Rogen. Chow’s character exudes what an action star should be, straight faced with the ability to kick ass. While all this is going on, he is still able to provide a dry sense of humor and a great attitude for the camera. Another of the major stars in this movie is Cameron Diaz. I don’t really need to explain that Cameron did an amazing job playing the lady lead in this movie. Her expressions led to the feeling of competence and humor needed to offset Rogen’s boorish nature. The rest of the characters provided the perfect mix of humor and seriousness that made the The Green Hornet a good mix between action and comedy.
I won’t lie, The Green Hornet was quite a direct movie in both comedy and action, but it still delivered in my expectations. The stunts were over the top and the action was intense and almost nonstop, but nothing that I did not expect from a hero movie. I did not expect to like it as much as I did, or laugh nearly as hard, and was grinning from ear to ear as I left the theater. Even my grandfather, who listened to the original The Green Hornet on the radio admitted that this was a great adaptation of the story. I would recommend going into it with an open mind and hope for the best. However, I noticed that there were more than a few curse words. While that does not bother me, if you have younger children or elder people who are easily offended I would consider waiting till it came out on TV.