Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 119 minutes
Release Date: January 14th, 2011 (USA)
Studio: Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Releasing
Director(s): Michel Gondry
Writer(s): Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg / George W. Trendle (radio series)

Don’t thank him. He did nothing.

Don’t be surprised when you find that the new incarnation of The Green Hornet has taken a very different path from its predecessors. The trailer should address this issue, but the simple fact Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are the duo tackling the escapades of George W. Trendle’s characters definitely will if not. The two had great success with their semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale of high school angst in Superbad and took a well-orchestrated shot at making action funny with Pineapple Express. So, it’s not hard to see the natural evolution into their newest endeavor: bringing a unique brand of random, erratic comedy (a Ganstas’ Paradise car ride sing-along on vinyl anyone?) to the superhero genre.

The pieces of this eclectic trio of work all possess different thematic backbones, but they also always ends up containing the wacky humor for which Rogen is known. Namely, an infusion of one-liners, obnoxious behavior, and off-the-wall supporting players. And while the law of diminishing returns is in effect from film to film, this one has enough zany laughs to sustain it as a fun popcorn vehicle to combat the drab winter of January. As long as you let it.

I was excited to see Rogen riff on his usual brand of “imbecile ignorant to consequences” in another genre because mixing martial arts, pop culture humor, and director Michel Gondry seemed a guarantee for box office success. Then the rumors dropped. Trouble finding a consistent tone. Poor test scores. A lazy attempt to cash-in with 3D conversion (thankfully my screening lacked that extra dimension). And the dreaded release date push to a January premiere. So, knowing next to nothing about the original radio show or the television program that made Bruce Lee a household name in America, I simply hoped for a few laughs and Gondry’s visual splendor. I ended up with sparse artistry amidst kinetic vehicular destruction and goofy, half-assed vigilantism.

Courtesy of a quick researching jaunt, it appears past versions of the masked Britt Reid and Kato merely portrayed a newspaper mogul looking to clean up the streets by joining the bad guys at night. To become an underworld leader in order to eradicate the underworld. What better way to prevent crime than removing those in power and replacing them with a fictitious entity whose only illegal doings are at the detriment of those criminals?

Well, Rogen and Goldberg kept the Good Samaritan through bad deeds schtick intact while molding everything else to what they know. By making James Reid (Tom Wilkinson) a bit of a jerk and loathsome to a young son turning his lack of fatherly love into a life of drinking and debauchery, we’re given a concise origin story to the drive for gratitude and never-back-down attitude of Rogen’s Britt. Daddy issues being trite aside, the motivation for a screw-up to even consider becoming a superhero is necessary. So, the fact James was also ungrateful to his mechanic/inventor Kato (Jay Chou) allows these two lost men to become quite the team. This isn’t Batman and Robin, though. It’s more like Robin kicking ass while his benefactor tries to not get them both killed.

The screenwriting duo’s past scripts had close-knit couplings of friends with attitude clashes (Superbad‘s Michale Cera and Jonah Hill and Pineapple Express‘ Rogen and James Franco), so The Green Hornet works best if you believe Reid and Kato are also best friends despite being at each other’s throats. Rogen rewrote Britt’s newspaper editor with a decent set of hand-to-hand skills from the 1966 “Green Hornet” into the fast-talking, brash loudmouth he does so well and, in turn, made Kato more powerful as the only capable fighter.

Jay Chou comes out of nowhere to fill Lee’s shoes with precision kung fu skills (Kato: “I’m from Shanghai.” Britt: “Cool, I love Japan.”) and a wonderful feel for comedic timing by using his character’s tenuous hold on English to benefit the jokes while endearing himself as an under-appreciated superstar. He may even be the most arrogant of the two (deservedly so), but it comes across subtly via words so we feel bad for him when juxtaposed against Britt’s undeniable ego. Their dynamic carries the film enough so one would assume Gondry could takeover with aesthetics. Besides the first fight sequence calling to mind one of his early music videos and a cool eight-frame split screen utilizing a neat camera trick, however, the director’s stamp is pretty much invisible.

Cameron Diaz should be applauded for allowing a joke that blatantly mocks the fact she looks older than she is. Edward James Olmos is admittedly wasted as a plot device. David Harbour does well as the smarmy DA Scanlon, a character that takes an interesting turn from the TV show if what I’ve read is true. And Christoph Waltz does over-the-top subtle to perfection—if that makes any sense. Playing the main villain Chudnofsky, he seems to be losing his mind more as every second passes. He takes ridicule from strangers and underlings in stride before busting out a double-barreled handgun to blow people away without remorse.

You expect Waltz to be crazy and off-the-wall, but he never loses his composure with elastic, expressive movements. His cold-blooded nature comes in short, direct spurts instead. Couple him with an uncredited cameo of pure hysterics from a Rogen BFF during the opening scene and you get the perfect set-up for the film’s tone. The back and forth is hilarious (perhaps partially improvised) and shows the audience the kind of hyper-reality in which the Green Hornet and his acquaintances reside. It tells you to accept the stupid wit, embrace the increasingly overlong action sequences, and let implausibility reign supreme.

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Seth Rogen (left) and Jay Chou star in Columbia Pictures’ action film THE GREEN HORNET. Photo By: Jaimie Trueblood.