The Green Hornet

I've been feeling lately that I’m giving harsher reviews. I guess it's because I've gotten a whiff of South Korean filmmaking. It's set the bar pretty high. But to the rating… I like the duo of Rogen and Chou, but it hasn’t got enough action for and action film and not funny enough for a comedy. Cameron Diaz played a completely unnecessary role. I guess this was just a name to catch moviegoers at the movies. The ending was pretty much a big "humbug", so 3.5 stars. (13/06/2011)

The Green Hornet may not have the crazy grit and "comic-book" flair of Kick-Ass, but it has an excellent bad guy (on a par with Mark Strong in Kick-Ass in terms of quality), precise Snyder-esque visuals, and Seth Rogen, who wrote a perfectly funny script and does a great job playing the main character just as comically as well. Michel Gondry's handwriting isn't lost in what for him is such an uncharacteristic genre, so all in all this is a popcorn film on a solid level. (19/01/2011)

An incredibly empty, boring and stupid film. Really. The protagonist is even more unsympathetic than Peter Spiderman Parker, the script is even more uninteresting than Fantastic Four (and that's saying something), and Christoph Waltz's villain is absolutely bland (the biggest disappointment). I'm also strongly allergic to the downright American wannabe humor used here, the visual effects are decent, but 90% of them are completely unnecessary (Kato's "cool" opening of the beer bottles as an example), and the music is inappropriate and distracting (I mean the song soundtrack, I didn't even notice Newton Howard's score)... The Green Hornet is quite possibly the worst comic book movie I've ever seen, and I couldn't really find anything about it (I never liked Cameron Diaz) that would let me give it at least a star. And I doubt that 3D in the movie theatre would have made any difference. I'm sorry. (15/05/2011)

For me, a massively pleasant surprise. Green Hornet was a lot of fun, both with the straightforward jokes and with the way it mocks itself (when the villain puts on a red robe and a gas mask is just hilarious… though not everyone will share that opinion) and other films in the genre (the ending similar to the fateful conclusion of The Dark Night). Gondry made it incredibly brisk and playful, like the fooling around of boys unbound by ethics. And the reflection on how the media manipulates with public opinion is not as cheap as you would expect from a comic-book film. I watched it in 2D, I don’t think the 3D version could be any better. (19/01/2011)

Strange, but it works. The best thing about Green Hornet is Christoph Waltz who you will just fall in love with. The action is choice, with Gondry often pulling extra treats out of the hat. In fact, I got what I expected. All right. Chudnofsky, kiss my ass. Put your lips to my ass and kiss it. French kiss it. Tickle it with your grey whiskers. I got bittersweet news for you. You're washed up. You're old. You're boring. You're not scary. You dress like shit. It's over for you, okay? That's the bitter news. Now the sweet news is: You can retire. You can go play golf, eat dinner at 3:00 in the afternoon, play with your grandkids, drink Metamucil, old people shit. Okay? Look at me. I got a name people can say. My name’s Danny Clear. I deal with crystal meth. People call me Crystal Clear. It’s easy. Check out my kick-ass hangout here. I got shit loads of glass everywhere. I got a see-through piano. Look at my boys. They're pimped out. We got Gucci, Armani, another Gucci, tailor-made. This is what you need to get to the top today. Not hard work. Not looking like Disco Santa Claus. You need charisma. You look like my Uncle Greg. Very nice guy, but, he's a dentist. Now consider this your retirement letter. Boom. It's over. See you way out. (03/04/2011)