Hope you had a great Friday! Welcome to our second Fright Night Friday movie review! This week's review comes from my wonderful friend/cousin and co-owner of the Halloween Night group, Chas! Don't forget, if you have a movie review you would like to submit, please email it to me at: annah66842@yahoo.com ! With that being said, here is Chas's review! Enjoy!
Green Hornet (2011)
A percentage of people when asked “Do you know who The Green Hornet is?” The usual reply is “No, who is he?” When I talked to one of my friends about Kato, her reply was “What is a Kato?” Here is a brief explanation on the Green Hornet and Kato.
Green Hornet was really Britt Reid who was a newspaper salesman The vigilante nature of the hero's operations quickly resulted in the Green Hornet being declared an outlaw himself, and Britt Reid played to it. The Green Hornet became thought of as one of his city's biggest criminals, allowing him to walk into suspected racketeers' offices and ply them for information, or even demand a cut of their profits. In doing so, the Green Hornet usually provoked them to attack him to remove this competitor, giving him license to defeat and leave them for the police without raising suspicion as to his true motives. Britt was also a relative of the Lone Ranger, as he was the Ranger's grand nephew.
He would be accompanied by his similarly masked chauffeur/bodyguard/enforcer, who was also Reid's valet, Kato, initially described as Japanese, and by 1939 as Filipino of Japanese descent. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, references to a Japanese heritage were dropped.
The Green Hornet appeared on radio, 1940‘s serial , in the 1960’s with Van Williams as the Britt Reid / Green Hornet and Bruce Lee as Kato.
When the announcement was made they were going to be making a Green Hornet movie, people like myself that grew up with the Green Hornet were eagerly waiting to see who would be cast in the roles. Many people speculated who might be playing Kato, but no word was mentioned as to who was playing the Green Hornet. Much to many peoples disbelief we found out that plump untalented Seth Rogen was co-writing and starring as Britt Reid / Green Hornet. Jay Chou plays Kato.
The movie was suppose to be an action comedy, but it fails miserably. Why? Two words… Seth Rogen. This plump untalented nothing took the character of Britt Reid and turned him into a mindless buffoon.
We see a plump Britt as a boy being sent home by his school for fighting. He was standing up for a kid being picked on. His dad breaks his favorite toy and basically tells him to get over it and he has to raise himself. As an adult Britt is an irresponsible playboy playing with the girls (like any female would want to associate with Seth) and his dad gets mad over the fact he is wasting his life.
His dad dies, or rather is killed (It was quite obvious from the start who murdered Britt’s dad. That is how terrible this script is.) After the funeral Britt (not having a decent cup of coffee as he usually has in the morning) demands to speak to the person who makes the coffee. Kato use to work for Britt’s dad working on his cars and making him coffee. The two become friends and decide to go in disguise to the cemetery where they erected a large statue of James Reid and vandalize it. Britt sees a couple in trouble being bullied by thugs. He tries to stop them, but they decide to chase Britt. Our vigilante shows what he is made of when he decides to run away screaming like a little baby boy. Kato comes to his rescue. His character comes across like a person who would pee his pants if a girl scout yelled at him for not paying her for the cookies he took. It doesn’t get any better. Britt decides that they were wasting their potential, so they should become crime fighters. Seth’s voice started to get on my nerves. He sounded like Shaggy from Scooby Doo hyped up on sugar.
Another scene shows the Green Hornet and Kato being chased by a truck. Kato picks up and rock and says “I will throw the rock through the windshield and you shoot him in the face with your gas gun.” Kato turns and sees the Green Hornet running away shooting the gas gun over his shoulder screaming “EVERYMAN FOR HIMSELF!”
Enters Britt’s female companion. Lenore “Casey” Case. She was suppose to be Britt’s girlfriend, but I guess nobody told the obnoxious Seth this. Instead she was used by Britt as a sex object. Throughout the movie there was one sexual innuendo after another by Britt. She unknowingly becomes the mastermind to the Green Hornet, she uncovers information about the Russian crime boss Benjamin Chudnofsky that's instrumental in helping Kato and the Hornet. At the same time, she is constantly angered of being fought over for her affection by the feuding Britt and Kato which in the process temporally got her fired from her job before being hired back again. In the end she decides to help them.
The film is a total waste of time. It is a perfect example of what happens when an untalented nobody like Seth Rogen thinks he can co-write and star in a movie and make it entertaining. The action is way over the top. Too much action and very little to no story plot. I hated the movie.
Seth should crawl back to the type of mindless movies he is known for and leave action movies alone. I have two hopes. 1) Seth Rogen does NOT decide to make a sequel. 2) One day soon someone will decide to make a Green Hornet movie. One that is worthy of the character. If I were to cast the role of Kato, I would choose Donnie Yen. For Britt Reid, I am not too sure, but anyone other than Seth would make the role come to life.
I give this movie a one skull rating.
The only reason why I give it a one skull is due to the fact I did laugh a couple of times.
Thank you, Chas, for your great review! When I heard Seth Rogen was starring in the movie, I wondered how that was going to work since his genre is raunchy comedies!
Thank you everyone, for tuning in! Have a spooktacular weekend!
