The Energon Pub

A nice bit of fun. It walked a fine line of serious/satire and stayed just this side of serious.

Grade: B

The Green Hornet at its core follows a basic Hollywood template. The Straight Guy/The Bada**. This movie at its core has the same "oddball" pairing as 48 Hours with Murphy/Nolte or Lethal Weapon with Riggs/Murtaugh. That is how I see this.

I really enjoyed the first and last acts of the movie. The opening minutes set the stage as adequately as most movies do for this type film. The scene with James Franco was fun. I caught the Bruce Lee nod in the movie but missed The Lone Ranger nod, it was credited in the closing credits. I enjoyed seeing James Edward Elmos as well, for a secondary character I enjoyed what his presence added to the film.

The last act of the movie plays like a good action movie with several good sequences strung together. I also liked how they opened it with a comic book panel style transition of getting the word out about the bounty on GH's head. There isn't a post credits scene for those who might be curious.

So where did I feel like the movie faultered to land in the 'B' range. The second act. After the good bonding in the first act we are led to believe that they are fighting over Cameron Diaz's character Lenore. She very clearly isn't interested in both yet we get this "brotherly quarrel" over her and a fight sequence about which of the two is the most important part of their duo.
While a number of the quick one off jokes work in the movie(laughter in the right places at my viewing) there were 3-4 spots where a few quick fire things(shotgun affect is how I like to describe it) were said and the joke felt forced and didn't click.

Overall though I enjoyed it, saw it in 2-D, and think at minimum it's a good matinee of fun for 2hrs.

Should it get a sequel I think the character likely would've evolved and matured. The comedy toned down a few tads yet still have well timed comedic moments.

Loved this movie. Fine line between laughably bad and enjoyably campy, but this was neither bad nor campy. That makes it good by process of elimination.

The Happy Locust wrote:Loved this movie. Fine line between laughably bad and enjoyably campy, but this was neither bad nor campy. That makes it good by process of elimination.

I really agree. aiat should past with flying colors!

It seems many agree that the film is worth seeing and walks a nice tight rope between too silly or too serious.

The Green Hornet pulled in another $18m to place #2 in its second weekend for a domestic total of $63.4m and $78m in just 11 days. Seems we could have another franchise of the superhero lot developing with Seth Rogan of all people.

I do think that a sequel with a slightly more serious Britt could work. With some line like:
Kato: Britt you seem to be much more serious now
Britt: Are you saying I'm not still funny and fun to be around?
Kato: Seems you fathers death has matured you a bit, your still funny.
Britt: Nah, being too serious is a superhero cliche...like wearing a cape!!

The 'cape' line being of course a joke line in this film about mistakes superheroes make. Just a thought anyway.

i just saw a 49% rating of this movie on rotten tomatoes.

The Green Hornet held steady over the weekend while last weeks openers The Mechanic and The Rite fell below TGH in the weekend standings. Also, The Dilemma, which opened the same weekend as Hornet in January placed 9th. These three films indicate what bad wom can do to a film. Hornet in its 4th weekend held at the #5 spot with another $6.1m for a domestic total of $87.2m. Along with updated international totals The Green Hornet now stands at $171m worldwide.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=greenhornet.htm

It seems the film is continuing to get good response despite what the critics think. Now that the ground work has been laid I hope any sequel can be an improvement. Cause while it was fun and I liked it Rogan's Britt is the one character that could use some polishing for the sequel. Not saying take the humor away, just polish things up a bit.