This is the latest movie versoin of the 1940's superhero. The movie stars lovable doofus Seth Rogan as the Green Hornet and Jay Chou as Kato.
The story: Britt (seth Rogan) is the fun loving, incompetant son of a wealthy newspaper owner. When his father dies, he has to take over the family business. He and the chauffeur (Jay Chou) get drunk and go out where they fight some thugs who are trying to hurt a girl. They get such a kick out of it they decide to become superheroes. But with a twist, they decide they will pretend to be villains while really being heroes. During this Britt uses his ownership of the paper to enflame anger at the Green Hornet while engages in a turf war with a dangerous mobster. This also angers the District Attourney who doesn't want articles printed about crime in his city while he is trying to turn for re-election. Eventually all this comes together -- the mobster, the DA, his fathers death -- all the while Britt and Kato fight over a girl.
Was it good?
No, but it wasn't as horrible as you might think. The problem is the story is WAAAAYYY too slow to get going. Action movies tend to be driven by the villain, but really the villain is almost an afterthought until the movie is over half over, and it is a full 3/4 into the movie until all these threads come together. And, oddly enough, instead of a hero movie where the hero is reacting to the villain, this is a movie where the villain is reacting to the hero's plan. Unfortunately this undercuts a lot of the tension since for the most part he could just stop at any time and everything would be fine. So for an action movie, it is lacking in tension.
Now, there are movies that get away with this but they do it by giving the character something they are desperate to achieve, so the audience watches that as they build into the main action thru-line. This is what happens in SPIDER-MAN and BATMAN BEGINS. Spider-Man has Peter Parker and MJ -- that's what the story is about, a boy who loves a girl. BAT-BEGINS has Bruce Wayne trying to deal with the death of his parents and find himself again.
This movie...not so much. It's like they tried to make the superhero version of TOMMY BOY, but it just doesn't quite work. They should have made it more like a superhero version of FLETCH. Move up the action, add some mystery elements early on to catch the viewer's attention...
Even then, the movie isn't horrible. It is just awkward and for the first half not very compelling to watch. If you are doing something else, then throw it on in the background and it'll be pretty enjoyable and there will be plenty of spots where you will want to look up and watch. So while I couldn't recommend it to see in the theaters, I'd recommend it to rent, especially if you are multitasking.
*** RENT (to watch while multitasking) ****
No comments:
Post a Comment