What is the one thing all heroes have in common? They’re all obvious good guys. Any villain knows that knocking the city around a little bit is going to bring a good hero running. So, what happens when an Average Joe decides to pose as one of the bad guys, while actually trying to save the city from an underground crime syndicate? Well, you either get one very dead Joe, or the story of The Green Hornet.
In 1936, a Detroit radio station premiered The Green Hornet to high audience response, especially among adolescents and teenagers. The station had previously aired The Lone Ranger, and due to the massive audience appeal for Ranger, a similar plotline was born in The Green Hornet. The series told the tale of Britt Reid – the millionaire playboy son of the city’s most influential newspaper publicist – who, after his father’s death, decides to enlist the help of the family’s chaueffer/bodyguard, Kato, to clean up the city as heroes. The pair’s heroics are masked by their ‘cover’ as outlaws, which allows them the freedom to obtain information directly from suspected racketeers. Eventually, individual crimelords would issue a bounty on The Hornet and his partner, giving them the opportunity to defeat criminals one-by-one, without raising suspicion from the police that their actions are intentional and without criminal malice. The show’s popularity led it to be adapted into two movie serials, The Green Hornet and The Green Hornet Strikes Again!, each film showing The Hornet and Kato defeating individual criminal rackets. The films were linked by a single major crime syndicate, which the pair successfuly defeat in the finale of the radio series. It would be several years before The Green Hornet would be revisited, as a television series in the mid-sixties, starring Van Williams as Britt Reid and Bruce Lee as Kato. The series ran for one season, but was well-received by fans.
The Green Hornet comics were initially published in conjunction with the radio series, and changed writers and publishers several times throughout the early years of its popularity, the final series being published in 1967. The comics resurfaced in 1989, when NOW Comics premiered a line of The Green Hornet comics, with several variations on the original storyline. NOW took on a more multigenerational storyline, linking Britt Reid to a lineage with The Lone Ranger, as well as introducing the concept of Reid’s father being the original Hornet. As the comics progress, later generations of both Reid and Kato become focused characters, each taking on the crime-fighting legacy of older family members.
The movie takes a much simpler and more entertaining approach than the majority of the comics, following the basic, original storyline and fleshing it out with awesome stunts and special effects. Party-happy, stay-at-home millionaire Britt Reid starts to take life a little more seriously after his father, publisher of the primary local newspaper, The Sentinel, dies unexpectedly, leaving his business and legacy to his unprepared son. After getting to know his father’s chaueffer/mechanic, Kato, over an abundance of alcohol and mutual horror stories about James Reid, Britt suggests that they get retribution through defacing his father’s monument. What seems to be a simple prank goes awry when Britt jumps in to save a couple from being attacked by a weapon-wielding gang, and Kato proceeds to save him by taking out the entire gang in a series of calculated martial arts maneuvers. After this, Britt suggests that they use their potential to become heroes and save the city, posing as criminals to have easier access to their targets. As Kato builds their car, weaponry, and costumes, Britt takes a solid interest in his father’s newspaper, using his newly inherited influence to coerce the staff to report on the vandal of his father’s monument. The Green Hornet’s name, and soon-to-be legend, is created and published as front page news. With the research help of over-qualified secretary, Lenore, Britt and Kato begin their mission to take down the city’s major crime syndicate, run by quirky crimelord Chudnofsky, from the inside-out.
Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express, Superbad) turns out a seriously impressive performance as Britt Reid Jr. (aka The Green Hornet). Because of his previous films, a little skepticism about how well he would play this part was only natural, but he pulls it off with great comedic timing and really works the immature-but-lovable-hero angle. Counterpart, Kato, is played by Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou (Curse of the Golden Flower, Tau Man Ji D), who puts in a believable performance as the straight man to Rogen’s wisecracking and bumbling Britt Reid. The relationship between these two characters adds a lot to the tone of the film, regularly going from endearing and brotherly to competitive and hilarious, focusing on Kato’s wide-ranging physical and engineering abilities in comparison with Reid’s good intentions, but lack of skill. Cameron Diaz (Charlie’s Angels, The Box) is as adorable as always, playing the female lead both Kato and Reid fall for, but she is fairly overshadowed by the action and comedy Rogen and Chou bring to nearly every scene. Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds) plays head crimelord Chudnofsky with ease, transitioning often from threatening and evil, to insecure and a little weird – not very dissimilar from his portrayal of Col. Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds. Edward James Olmos (CSI: NY, Battlestar Gallactica) plays the small, but substantial and relevant, part as the chief editor of The Sentinel and replacement father figure for Britt. The movie starts off with a fun cameo from James Franco (Freaks and Geeks, Spiderman 2) as a smart-mouthed meth dealer trying his hand at intimidation against Chudnofsky.
The fighting style introduced (initally strictly by Kato) was a nice addition to the action scenes. When faced with an adrenaline rush, Kato channels a concentration that seems to “stop time”, as he focuses on each opponent and the weapon they’re using, giving him the edge to take out each one individually, while avoiding any hits (this absolutely brought to mind the “Healing Touch” style used in the DS and Wii versions of Trauma Center). But much of the focus is definitely the car Kato designed and built for missions, Black Beauty. The mid-sixties Chrysler Imperial (many models of the Imperial were initially equipped with suicide doors and an eight cylinder engine, so this was a bad car to begin with), is detailed in a sleek black paint with chrome rims and exhaust pipes, so its definitely pretty and stands out from the typical sports-car-esque vehicles generally associated with vigilante heroes. But Kato takes it to the next level, arming it with two hood-mounted, retractable .30-Caliber M1919 Browning machine guns, eight front Stinger missiles, four rear Stinger missiles, a grill-mounted flamethrower, two 20 gauge shotguns loaded with non-lethal ammunition (beanbags) mounted in the light bezels, and tire shredders to pop out of front and rear tires. So, yeah. Black Beauty quickly becomes the star of the show.
The campiness associated with The Green Hornet is nowhere to be found throughout the movie. The funny parts are genuinely that, really funny. The fight sequences and action scenes are very well-done, with many of the villains meeting awesome Final-Destination-style deaths. Are the near-miss scenarios legitimately believable and could absolutely happen? No, of course not. But that’s part of what makes The Green Hornet so much fun; pure entertainment value. The 3D reformatting was very easy on the eyes, and didn’t distract from the scenes at all.
It was widely speculated that the 3D formatting was the cause of the initial delay in the film’s release, but the 3D really wasn’t terribly focused. If it was delayed for other reasons (refilming, adding content, etc), it came out extremely well. The actors hold their own for the most part, the jokes are consistent and funny (even the slightly overused kicks/punches to the male genitalia have good timing), and the storyline comes together well. Fans who are concerned with how The Green Hornet is going to turn out will be pleasantly surprised, and thoroughly entertained.
ComicsOnline gives The Green Hornet 4.5 out of 5 movies that we hope will have a sequel.
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