The Green Hornet Strikes!

I had three papers in my room over the weekend, all of them had reviews on the Green Hornet, and for all of them I averted my gaze until this evening- AFTER I saw the film.

Ordinarily I wouldn't care about spoilers for movies, but I did for this one. It feels like I've been waiting on Green Hornet for a long time, eagerly anticipating a movie that I really had no clue about.

Did you know the director was the same guy who did "Be Kind Rewind"- Michel Gondry (as well as, apparently, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but I still haven't seen that one yet).

You know 'Be Kind Rewind' had a ton of heart to it, but not a lot of people seemed to dig it.

The reviewers don't seem keen on Green Hornet either.

For me? I LOVED IT.

I wonder if people(reviewers I guess) expected this to be a funny movie. It isn't. And it is. It's a superhero movie spliced with an action film, with characters that are flawed enough to be funny.

Most of the humour derives from Seth Rogens take on the Green Hornet as an everyman. When he partners up with his "sidekick" Kato, an accomplished martial artist/inventor/engineer/artist, he's understandably blown away. Kato is a Superman taking orders from Jimmy Olsen. That's actually a pretty funny premise right there when you stop to think about it.

All Britt Reid/Green Hornet has is a desire to "be a hero", whatever that means (and it changes at times throughout the movie), as well as the kind of charm you expect from a millionaire playboy. Well, faux charm anyways- the suave charm of the 60's Green Hornet has given way to the modern sensibility of the awkward funnyman AS charm.

This is particularly effective because without the kind of egocentric self-UNawareness of the modern Hornet, the character of Britt Reid could never believably start as the Green Hornet.

I already alluded to this when I said that "how to be a hero" changes throughout the movie. At the start, Green Hornet wants to be a superhero- goes out to the streets, busts criminals heads; classic four-colour print material. But once reality sets in and the bad guys kill a bunch of innocent people trying to get at Green Hornet, you can see (or rather, I saw- maybe I'm adding depth to the film, but I doubt it) that Seth Rogen's character has grown, he understands that his actions for the most part have done more damage than good, and sets about trying to make things right while also effecting POSITIVE change using his newly inherited newspaper/media empire.

In fact, at this point in the movie this Britt Reid never goes out to "bust heads" again- he gets pulled into action while trying to do some no-mask, no-pseudonym investigative journalism, and only pulls on the costume while he's got a moment in the car when EVERYONE who's driving after him has already figured out who he is. Clothes make the man, after all, so I can readily forgive his putting on some war paint for the final battle.

Not only that, but at this point "the system" stands revealed as corrupted, as the only kind of environment where you have to take the law into your own hands- when there is no other law. The Green Hornet becomes now the justified vigilante (as most fictional vigilantes are) finally armed with the knowledge that he SHOULD be the guy in a costume.

See, Britt Reid was wrong to become the Green Hornet, but after character and plot development, the only way to make things right IS to be the Green Hornet. It BECOMES the right thing to do.

Now if we compare to the 60's Hornet- an upstanding citizen of the city, philanthropist, good head on his shoulders (by which I also mean ego-less... he'd have to be, working in the shadow of BRUCE LEE's Kato) I have to ask- how did THAT guy become the Green Hornet? Are we just not privy to his hero's journey? Maybe.

One particularly interesting scene was the fight between Green Hornet and Kato. A friend of mine pointed it out as the one major problem to the movie, running a little long. I can certainly see where he's coming from with that.

For my part, the fight was funny with the first taps and then with each new inventive weapon and kick that demands you take notice of how cool it is, but then develops into the uncomfortable stage of neither side REALLY wanting to escalate things, and then it becomes sad when it's no longer funny but the fight keeps on going.

Funny, uncomfortable, sad.

Incorporating that sadness into this movie, making it clear that having the two heroes fight each other isn't something to be played for laughs but is actually damaging to both characters, characters who relied on each other more than either one realized.

You may have seen this in the trailer, but at one point Kato says about Britt Reid's recently deceased dad "He was a complex man."

I think that line pretty much covers it- despite our expectations of a Seth Rogen movie/Seth Rogen character, his Britt was complex. Britt's father was complex, even to the characters who thought they knew him best. That hero/sidekick fight wasn't simply a goofy fight played for laughs that ran too long, it was more complex than that.

I almost said the villain was an exception to that, but that's a disservice to that character, he was an evil guy that was also really self conscious about his image, certainly going through some kind of mid life crisis- he introduced humourous elements by being a step beyond an action villain pastiche. He wanted to go kill his friend who betrayed him himself because "he's my friend!"
It's not entirely logical, but it is pretty human, and it is pretty funny.

It's a shame that Cameron Diaz didn't have a larger role in the movie, it wasn't until the very end that she got to really play a part- and when she did she had an excited spark to her face that made me really glad to have her on the team.

But then again, I appreciate the development of the relationship between Reid and Kato, and that would've been sacrificed with more Diaz stuff.

Oh, I said this to my friend in the theatre, but I didn't say it loud enough and so totally ruined the way-too-thought-out-joke-that-wasn't-even-funny-in-the-first-place where I said "heh- those dummies brought guns to a car fight!"

Eh, you kind of have to see any of the major fight scenes for that to be meaningful in any way, but remember it, and when you see the movie go "OH, I get it."

"That wasn't very funny, Isaac."

"At all."

Yeah yeah, I get it.

Anyways, great movie, I had a ton of fun, I was basically smiling throughout all of it. It's pretty violent in that a lot of mooks die, but once I remembered that, you know, realistically, all of the characters are involved in some pretty dangerous activities- all things considered, the body count is actually pretty conservative. Hm, maybe I'm just crazy.