Review - Green Hornet

Despite my better judgment I went to see Green Hornet today. It sure was a let down even when not expecting much. At best this film was lame, at worst it insults rather than honors the character and its creators.

There were no good performances from any of the actors. Seth Rogen (the Green Hornet) was annoying, David Harbour (D.A. Frank Scanlon) was one dimensional, and Chrisoph Waltz could not even manage to play an entertaining villain.

The Green Hornet and Kato have little reason to begin crime-fighting other than for kicks. As they stumble around trying to climb the ladder of the underworld they have no goal other than making a name for themselves. They have no idea of what they are doing or the death and destruction they will cause. There is nothing heroic about these heroes.

The original concept of a hero that pretends to be a villain to help bring down the underworld and other forces of evil is great. A great idea to help keep the villains from using innocent people as tools to use against heroes…. If the bad guy thinks you don’t care about the innocent he won’t go out of his way to threaten them.

Bad jokes, poor acting, Seth Rogan’s annoying voice, and a lame story all make this a terrible movie. In an age where comic book hero movies are becoming more and more mainstream it would have been nice for the Green Hornet to get a fair shake in terms of taking the character seriously. If Batman were treated as poorly as the Green Hornet was in this film there would have been an uprising of the fans (okay, there was Batman & Robin…. But that did cause trouble and forced a much needed reboot for the Batman film franchise).

I’ve listened to a number of the old Green Hornet radio shows. Any one of them was better than this movie.

Anyway, don’t see this one.

(as an added note I do plan on checking out The Green Hornet Chronicles, edited by Win Scott Eckert. I’m certain it will meet my expectations better than the movie)