The Green Hornet

Whee! More nonsense!

It's twenty years ago, and young Britt Reid is in trouble with his dad. He's been sent home from school for fighting, having got his ass kicked trying to stop a bully. His dad, however, is not impressed. He's a crusading newspaper editor, and hasn't got time for his son, and is basically something of a jerk. To punish the kid, he tears the head off his son's favorite toy, a Supermanesque doll, and throws it in the bin.

Flash forward 20 years, and Britt Reid is basically a mess; he's become a worthless boozing rich kid, whose sole purpose in life seems to be being a disappointment to his dad, which he's excelling at.

And then, all at once, he's finding that his dad's dead, and he's the heir to the whole newspaper fortune, inheriting everything, including his dad's prized car collection, overseen by the mechanic, Kato.

Britt and Kato bond over, essentially, a mutual feeling that Britt's dad was a jerk, and decide to go and vandalise the memorial statue put up in his honour. While they're out doing that, masked, they run into some muggers, and Britt rushes in to stop them. Kato joins the fray, and becomes clear that he's some kind of human engine of martial arts destruction. This is in addition to being a whizz inventor and mechanic, and having the ability to make a perfect cup of coffee.

Having got a taste of the hero life, Britt wants more, and persuades Kato to get involved too; Kato's insane levels of mechanical genius are put into action building awesome weaponry, and the Green Hornet is born; posing as a rival crime lord, The Green Hornet declares war on the local mob boss, and all hell proceeds to break loose.

So, that's the plot, but what's it like? In a word, Fun. Seth Rogen scripts and stars, which I think is a good combination. His version of Britt Reid is, basically, an adult version of the eight year old was at the start of the movie; a brave, scrappy little kid with basically no talent or skills. All he has going for him is his dubious but undeniable charm, and his unwillingness to back down and ignore what's going down. Kato is his polar opposite, taciturn, Batmanesque talent in the gadgetry and asskicking stakes, but basically unmotivated and happy to be a mechanic who makes the coffee.

The pair of them come together to make one good hero between them; Kato with basically all the skills and expertise, and Britt with all the gusto and conviction that the job has to be done. And the film's really all about that apparent imbalance. Britt brings basically nothing to the table, except for the odd hare-brained idea, and in a way, he strips down the idea of a hero to its very barest of essentially; insisting that they stand up and do what's right, despite lacking even basic competence.

The film itself is beautifully shot by Michael Gondry; he seems to understand that what this is all about is a child's fantasies of heroics and shiny gadgets. Everything gleams and shines, the cars and gadgets are larger than life without seeming like props, the action whooshes and glides around excellently, interspersed with all the nice between-the-fights interplay between Britt and Kato

Playing against them is Christopher Waltz as an old school Russian crime boss whose complete dominance of the LA crime scene is challenged by The Green Hornet, and he rather amusingly spends the whole time playing catchup, not really understanding who or what The Green Hornet is, losing ground as gangs become more impressed by the legend of the Hornet vs the mundane reality of his being merely a vicious criminal. It's a great turn by him, not quite the awesomeness of his role in Inglourious Basterds, but then I suspect a role and performance like that comes along once in a lifetime. If the film has a weakness, it's that he and the Hornet are never really pitted against each other, with each having the full knowledge of who the other is; both Seth Rogen and Christopher Waltz are great, and it's a shame they don't get to really verbally cross swords.

Other than that, I happily recommend the whole thing. Including, to my surprise, the 3D, which is quite amazingly good given that it was added in post-production; the fact Michael Gondry oversaw the process made all the difference, I suspect.