MyRating: YY1/2Director: Michel Gondry
Cast: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz, Cameron Diaz, David Harbour, Edward James Olmos, Tom Wilkinson
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sequences of violent action, language, sensuality and drug content
After the sudden death of his conglomerate father, a playboy and lazy heir, Britt Reid (Seth Rogen), finds himself unprepared to be the new owner of his father's giant newspaper empire, "The Daily Sentinel". Ignorant and knows nothing about the business, Britt quickly finds himself unfitted to his new responsibility. But his life changes, when he meets with Kato (Jay Chou), his father's personal mechanic and also a kung fu expert, and both of them accidentally stop a robbery attempt. Inspired by their success and what a good team they may become, Britt decides that they should continue their adventure by fighting the criminals and wiping them out of their city. And Britt becomes a masked vigilante named "The Green Hornet", a new superhero in town, who every criminal shall beware.
This new remake of The Green Hornet was turning into a Seth Rogen movie. As the co-writer, Rogen definitely has all the flexibility and freedom to stamp the script with his style of humors all over the places, to go along with his ignorant and annoying character. He also wrote himself to have a lot of lines in the movie, as he dominated and talked and talked a lot, mostly with pointless conversations. Anyway, he is Seth Rogen, either you will like him, or you will hate him!
If you think about it, this movie is also a showcase of stupidity. If destroying an expensive car (actually 'cars', as there are more than one) and destroying your own house by fighting with your own servant (or partner) are not enough, then consider destroying your own office building, the place where you run your newspaper business. And still, you will see a smile of satisfaction in the face of Seth Rogen, as if he has just won a grand prize. So my suggestion is, don't think about it too much, as the more you think about it, the stupid the film will be. I enjoyed some parts of the movie and felt the other parts of it overly ridiculous. At times, I could smile with some of the jokes, but at the other times, I felt the movie was so childish and overlong, especially when Seth Rogen started his no-brainer dialogs.
Two things still kept my interest though. First, the 'Kato vision' and how 'Kato fights' did look cool. Jay Chou, the most popular Taiwanese singer and song writer nowadays, gave quite a decent performance in his first Hollywood movie appearance here. Even though I have to say that his more serious personality did not exactly match with the craziness of Seth Rogen, but they seemed to pair quite well together in the movie. And second, Christoph Waltz as Chudnofsky. I enjoyed him as the villain. Even though his villain character was more of a comical, but his acting was fun to watch. I think his first scene with James Franco, who appeared cameo as Danny Crystal Clear, was the best part of this movie. Franco was great and hilarious in that short appearance. Cameron Diaz appeared as Lenore Case (or herself?), who smiles in eleven of her ten movie appearances, with her big charming round smile.
The 3D? I watched it in 3D and it was definitely a waste of money, as the 3D added no value to the movie at all. It was a mere conversion from 2D. So, don't waste your money for 3D.
Some people may hate this movie, some others may like it, exactly the same with how people will feel about Seth Rogen as the new generation of comedian. And this two-hour movie with Rogen is a two-hour full of stupidity, madness and nonsense. (MJ)
The 3D? I watched it in 3D and it was definitely a waste of money, as the 3D added no value to the movie at all. It was a mere conversion from 2D. So, don't waste your money for 3D.
Some people may hate this movie, some others may like it, exactly the same with how people will feel about Seth Rogen as the new generation of comedian. And this two-hour movie with Rogen is a two-hour full of stupidity, madness and nonsense. (MJ)
