Caffeinated Clint
When it comes to hiccups, Sony’s “Green Hornet” has, quite frankly, endured more of them than Lindsay Lohan has hangovers – last-minute casting switcheroo’s (Nicolas Cage out, Christoph Waltz in); losing it’s director and co-star in one full swoop (Stephen Chow vacated the Black Betty’s passenger seat); and just generally worrisome press – stemming from either the aforesaid changes or the shoddy release slot it’s been offered.
And while one can’t deny that there was a game of musical chairs over on the Seth Rogen starring action/comedy for a long while there, the film may be able to put an end to the cynicism.
Yep, it’s apparently good great!
I never really watched “The Green Hornet”. It was a bit before my time. Not that that should make any difference -I’ve seen “Citizen Kane” and watched many an episode of “Hawaii Five-O” and they too were well before my time. Just that, here in Australia, I don’t remember it being one of the many classic series that us kids of the ’80s would be confronted with in rerun world. “The Lone Ranger”, however, was one that was constantly being cued up by broadcasters. Saw many an episode of that. “Green Hornet” though? Besides the episodes that were released on VHS, never saw a lot of it. From the sounds of things, it won’t much matter that I’ve only seen Bruce Lee’s Kato half-a-dozen times.
I was sorta, kinda, maybe interested in seeing the film – but largely because I was ‘curious’.
Now I might just be ‘eager’, too!
Michel Gondry’s “Hornet” screened for attendees of last weekend’s BNAT in Austin, Texas and though the critics in attendance have been sworn not to divulge anything about the movie, let alone review it, word has started to trickle out that everyone – and I quote one critic here – “fucking loved it!”.
“The Green Hornet”, it seems, is a daddy longlegs with irregular teeth – you won’t expect it to do any damage, but it just might. Sharp, it seems, this baby is.
But why wouldn’t it have turned out OK!? Think about it…Michel Gondry – director of one of my favourite films “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” – is behind the megaphone, and it goes without saying that he’s not going to just shoot some straight-up seen-it-all-before superhero movie; Seth Rogen, like Gondry, has been picking his projects carefully and intelligently – he’s not going to follow up “Knocked Up”, “The Pineapple Express”, “Superbad” and “Funny People” with something he and his peeps saw as a ‘paid gig’ and nothing more, is he!?, also you only have to check out how much weight Rogen has lost to get an idea of just how much physical biffo and action is going to be in the film; and tell me the trailers don’t at least look fun?
So what say those that attended the early screening? Well, words like “Cool”, “Iron Man” and “Funny” are being thrown around. Don’t sound like a turd to me!
‘Brains’ tells us via email that, “It rocks. I fucking loved it. It’s like Iron Man meets Arthur, the Dudley Moore movie. It’s funny, but it’s got lottsa cool action in it too. Rogen is good – i just couldn’t stop looking at how skinny he was – but he’s overstaged by Waltz and Chou, even Cameron Diaz is tolerable. It just looks so cool… it’s going to give this Tron flick a run for it’s money with the visuals. Probably got a better story too”.
‘Nordling’ from Aint it Cool News says, “…one of the best experiences in cinema.
Not one person that saw it had anything bad to say about it, and I really hope their hard work will pay off and make this movie a big hit.”
Nordling also touched on the film’s release date. “Although this is being released in January, traditionally a dump-month for the studios, I must insist that this isn’t a dump kind of film.”
‘JamesCrawfords’ on the IMDB MessageBoards says, “Highlights of the movie were definitely the innovative stylized action sequences, mainly from Kato. Although there was quite a bit of slo-mo, it is not the standard action slo-mo as Gondry added fresh innovations, fun twists to amp up the “coolness” and it works. Light humour occured somewhat frequently in the film and generated laughs, similar to something along lines of Ironman.”
The poster also made mention of Jay Chou (‘Kato’) and Christoph Waltz (‘the villain’) saying that the former “is the MAN… he is a pleasure to watch on screen” and that the “Inglourious Basterds” alum “makes a great villain”.
The Black Betty – The Hornet & Kato’s transport – near steals the show.
Sums up the poster, “This movie is very entertaining and fun, they seem to have done it right like Iron Man(the first). I cannot wait to see it in 3D which will be VERY interesting with the effects of action sequences..”
‘Worm33’ also on the IMDB Message Boards says, “Fights were pretty funny mostly Rogen runnning around trying to not die screaming like a girl as Cato did bad ass martial arts, Green Hornet’s total cowardliness and arrogance made it great. Seth Rogen was perfect for the role of a rich douche who is a totally chicken and is scared out of mind and constantly begging Cato to save him. Funniest movie I have seen in ages. It isn’t like he learns his lesson an turns all serious and heroic, he remains a total jerk throughout.”
‘Drew’ at HitFix is also ga-ga for the flick. “Although we didn’t see it in 3D, we did see a mostly finished print of “The Green Hornet,” and my main reaction to the film is one of pleased relief. It is a big fat pleasure, a knowing tweak of the superhero genre that coasts along on the very-real chemistry between Seth Rogen and Jay Chou through a less-focused first half before finally clicking into focus with a wild and entertaining second half. The film plays it straight at times, and at other times it’s pure unhinged comedy, and the combination works. Michel Gondry turns out to be an inspired choice for the material, and even his genre-standard montages have a loony energy that’s all his. The action is fun, Christoph Waltz chews some scenery as the bad guy, and by the end, I was eager for a next adventure with the Green Hornet and Kato. ”
And finally, ‘Miss Natch’ DM’ed me her thoughts in Twitter saying “It’s not The Dark Knight or Iron Man, but it comes very close.”
Okay, so that’s only the opinion of five or six, but I can tell you that it’s triggered my interest in seeing the film. Yours?
