Review: The Green Hornet

Based on its January release and could-go-either-way trailers, I expected The Green Hornet to be pretty bad. It wasn’t.

I would hardly say I’m in Seth Rogen backlash mode at this point, but I’ve definitely cooled on him a little, if only to the point where I don’t think he automatically makes a movie better just by being in it. He’s used well in The Green Hornet, though, playing up his strengths as an incompetent goofball. He adds a self-centered side that adds to Jay Chou’s (as his partner Kato) status as the real hero here.

More subjectively, I had a good time watching this, I laughed a lot and director Michel Gondry does some nice camerawork, but I can’t really see myself sitting around some afternoon thinking, “Man, I could definitely watch The Green Hornet right now.” Yet I’ll happily check Netflix Instant to see if 2012 is available (it is!). That’s one of the things I have to do when I’m wearing my critic hat (which looks exactly like a wizard hat): do my best to separate what’s (semi-objectively) good from the stuff that I just like for no damn reason.

Otherwise, I would be recommending a lot of actiony bullshit everyone else hates. I mean, more than I already do that.