From Seth Rogen's performance, the script and Michael Gondry's direction to the ultra-violence, Christoph Waltz as the villain and more, 411s Shawn S. Lealos takes a look at The Green Hornet !
Welcome to Week 133 of Alternate Takes, my name is Shawn S. Lealos and you have entered my world.
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The article features SPOILERS for The Green Hornet .
When Seth Rogen was named the lead actor in the new Green Hornet movie, people started to question what the producers were thinking. Rogen is best known for movies like Knocked Up and Pineapple Express , not for the role of a masked vigilante.
The Green Hornet is a superhero who is basically another Batman. He is Britt Reid, a newspaper publisher, who takes on the role of the masked vigilante and fights crime to clean up the streets. Instead of being seen as a superhero, like Superman, he is seen as a criminal. This allows him to get into the ranks of the criminal underworld and break them down from within.
The show, which started as a radio broadcast and later became a TV show and comic book franchise, made some alterations to Britt Reid over time, including making him a playboy, making the similarities to Batman even stronger, but never once did his character seem to be based on a Seth Rogen type role.
As a result, Seth Rogen made sure to tailor it for himself, making changes where appropriate and completely changing the character into something almost unrecognizable.
Now, to be fair the character of Brett Reid in The Green Hornet is a mixture of two different characters. Kevin Smith was hired to write the movie with the possibility of directing it. He left the project but took his ideas and created the new DC Comics series following the exploits of Reid's son, who takes over the mantle of the Green Hornet. The son is an arrogant, party-boy who has to grow into the role of a hero.
The character in the movie takes the son and makes him Britt Reid. The only problem is that they make his dad the publisher of the paper and make Britt the arrogant, insolent kid who refuses to grow up. When his dad, who was never a hero, dies then Britt takes control of the paper.
Britt keeps one of his father's personal servants, Kato, because the man makes the coffee every morning that makes him happy. Kato also makes bullet proof cars loaded with weapons, so that is a plus.
The movie, directed by Michel Gondry, is a beautifully constructed film. The guy does not know how to make a movie that does not look incredible. The problem is the script. Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogan wrote the script to cater to Rogen's infatuation with being the bad boy.
Just like in the original Green Hornet , the hero posed here as a bad guy in order to infiltrate the bad guy's lair. The bad guy in question here is played hilariously by Christophe Waltz ( Inglourious Basterds ). The cast of the movie is solid with Tom Wilkinson as Reid's dad, Edward James Olmos as an editor for the newspaper and Cameron Diaz as secretary Lenore Case. Jay Chou is also perfect as Kato.
Once you get past the acting and the amazing directing, we are left with a script that is a mess.
Rogen makes Britt Reid a sloppy, arrogant and dangerous man. He decides to become a hero because he got a rush when he and Kato saved a couple from being mugged. Once they become the heroes, they set out to stop criminals by posing as criminals. Along the way, they destroy millions of dollars in public property, almost kill numerous police officers trying to arrest them and help blow up Reid's own newspaper building.
They also kill their enemies in cold blood including murdering one helpless villain in order to protect their secret identities. Seth Rogen wanted to come off as the cool hero here. He went the route of a Kick Ass , choosing the ultra-violence over the true nature of the superhero. As a result, the movie comes across as a sham, a facsimile of what the movie should have been.
With Michel Gondry behind the lens and the star cast surrounding him, The Green Hornet had a ton of promise. Thanks to Seth Rogen and his desire to be the cool superhero, it is a giant disappointment.
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