THE GREEN HORNET (2011 - 12A)

They are everywhere. Superheroes. Absolutely everywhere It's getting to the point where, according to cinema, there are more people fighting crime with superhuman abilities than there are 'normal' people idly pottering about their every day business waiting to be saved. Studios are tripping over themselves to get another one made, released and merchandised. The trouble is, the pool of superheroes of which to pick from is beginning to quickly diminish which means that we either have to visit old ground (see Spiderman, Superman, X-men and Batman reboots) or the film makers have to dig out or come up with something original. This is beginning to result in our heroes becoming more and more obscure and less well known.

I didn't know a great deal about the history of the Green Hornet which led me to believe that it was a recent comic book invention that a studio had desperately latched onto in order to keep the superhero cash registers in action, but a quick bit of Internet research quickly proved me wrong. The Hornet, a masked vigilante fighting crime with his martial arts expert sidekick Kato both portrayed as a villains by the media, has been around since the 1930's, appeared on American radio and has been in comic books for years. There's been TV serials and all sorts of references over the years in popular culture to the character. How did it pass me by? It also appears that people have been trying to get a feature film off the ground for almost 20 years. Just looking at the film's far from gospel wikipedia page points to a very protracted and difficult history. It's been one of those will they/won't they films for ages, it's been attached to names such as George Clooney, Greg Kinnear, Jake Gyllenhaal, Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Smith and a script that seems to have had a rewrite every ten minutes. It finally got made, Michel Gondry behind the camera with Seth Rogen as the Hornet and on screenplay duty with Evan Goldberg. So now that it's finally come to light, has it done it's legacy justice.



The truth it's not really a superhero film, in two senses. The Green Hornet isn't actually a superhero, he doesn't have any super powers. He's from the same stable as Batman, a vigilante with lots of cash out to clean up this town. He's just a hero. That's just a technicality though, I'm being a pedant, but now we've cleared that up, the real problem with the film is that it is a million miles away from being a super hero film, in fact it's not even a decent hero film.

The first thing that I noticed was how unoriginal it felt. The Batman comparison I made a moment ago is, I must admit, obvious, but what else am I supposed to say, it is about a bloke who loses his parent/parents which drives him to get revenge and rid the world of the crime that took his parents away. The bloke also has loads of cash because his father was loaded, which he chucks at a whole host of crime fighting toys and cool vehicles. I could be talking about either Batman or the Green Hornet. I am led to believe that the Green Hornet was born about 5 years before Batman was, so I'm not saying it's deliberately ripping off the Dark Knight, it's just that because of the popularity and widespread appeal of Batman, the story of the Green Hornet feels woefully short of fresh.

It's staleness doesn't stop there though. Rogen's script goes after laughs regularly, mostly playing the 'inept hero' card but we've seen this brand of humour already with Raimi's Spiderman films and even the X-Men films to a point. The jokes also aren't very good, they're not funny and old. Not a good combo. A buddy movie has also been attempted. The relationship between Rogen's Hornet and his sidekick Kato played by Jay Chou (a massive star in Asia winning the World Music Award four times) is again something that has been seen many times before (in every single buddy film ever made) - you know the sort of thing, two blokes meet, become friends, fall out, get back together just in time to save the day and have a happy ending. It's been done much better many times elsewhere. Another issue is it's apparent attempt at being a bit edgier, a bit more violent. There are guns and people do get shot, proper shot, with blood and getting dead. It's doesn't have the glossy idealistic atmosphere of Spiderman for example. This is all very good but it comes almost a year after Kick Ass, which is again another instance of something doing it all much much better than the Green Hornet.

So, it clearly isn't pushing any boundaries, but that isn't to say it can't still be decent can it?

Seth Rogen is a watchable presence so he does just about get away with being the lead in this film. He's understandably much more at home with the comedy elements of the role, being a useless vigilante and a selfish pig at the beginning of the film. However once he is required to show some emotion in the serious moments, or towards the end of the film where he has to pull his socks up to save the day, he struggles to convince. Chou is probably the best part of the film, getting the most laughs. There is a youthful feel to his performance, a cheeky boyish look here, a sulky grimace there. It works well and you quickly forget that his slight struggles with the grasp of the English Language affect his delivery of the script. Cameron Diaz's inclusion as the secretary and brains of the operation irritated me hugely. Not anything to do with Diaz herself necessarily but the role itself is clumsily included, clunkily written and there as obvious exposition. Consequently it looks as though Diaz is rubbish, whereas the reality is, actors can only do the best with what they are given. The biggest disappointment of the film is Christoph Waltz, someone who really knows how to play a bad guy. His turn in Inglorious Basterds was a revelation and rightly picked him up an Oscar but he also proved it again in Water For Elephants where, again he was the best thing about the film. So how is his baddie in the Green Hornet, Chudnofsky, so bad? Rogen's script makes Chudnofsky an insecure baddie, constantly worrying about what others think of him and his standing in the criminal world as youngsters try and muscle in on his empire. It is an amusing concept but it isn't transferred well to the screen. The chase for both laughs and scares causes Waltz to lose all of the menace and the madness that was present in Inglorious and Water for Elephants, and before you say he might not be trying to recapture that, he clearly is, talking to victims in that familiar way, with that charming but mental smile, before blowing them away. This film has somehow conspired to make Christoph Waltz not scary, which is some achievement.

It's not all doom and gloom though. Michel Gondry's inclusion as director does have it's benefits. Always daring and creative when it comes to putting something on screen, Gondry deals with the simple stuff well, he knows how to film comedy properly, but he makes the action in the Green Hornet a joy to watch. Kato's skill in the fist fights is shown in brilliant slow-mo with the camera spinning around the action constantly and focusing on Kato's next target, almost taking you inside his instinctive thought process. There is also a fantastic amount of destruction in the finale that Gondry clearly enjoys and handles well.

It's not enough though, A bit of exciting camera work and a few explosions, it can't rescue the film. All in all, it's a huge disappointment, it's not a good comedy, it's not a good superhero film, the acting is passable, the script is poor and becomes overly convoluted towards the end, and although it's not totally predictable, there is no peril, you always know deep down that our heroes are going to win the day. If you want to watch a  superhero film like this, just go back to some of the others I mentioned earlier, because you've practically seen the Green Hornet already.

MONSTERS VS ALIENS (2009)

Sunday evening, just come through the worst hangover in living memory, curry ordered, Monday morning approaching fast.....film choice was always going to be a tough decision. I've got a couple of arty subtitled films to get through, a bit of ultra violent dross as well, but I just needed something.....well nice. And Easy. I scrolled through the film channels and there on Sky Family, was Monsters vs Aliens.



Another digitally animated film from the prolific Dreamworks studio (responsible for the Shrek series and the much underrated Jerry Seinfeld film Bee Movie), I felt safe, I had expectations of what I was getting into and I was fairly sure that they would be met. You would have cute characters, they would be voiced buy a range of current stars, there will be enough action and slap stick to keep the kids happy, but there will also be a fair dose of jokes aimed at the grown ups with film references galore, bit of peril but everyone living happily ever after.

I don't know what is more remarkable - me getting the checklist so spot on or the film ticking all the boxes so unashamedly. It seems that their is now a recognised formula for these films and Dreamworks think they've got it licked.

It's a story that has quite a bit of promise. Earth under attack from an evil Alien and Humankind's only hope are the monsters that the American government have kept locked away. There is a 50 foot woman (Reese Witherspoon), a blob (Seth Rogen), a fish man (Will Arnett), a human-sized genius professor cockroach (Hugh Laurie - hasn't he done well) and a giant bug/insect/thing. Its a clever idea that plays on the modern fascination with UFO's and conspiracy theories. At times it looks as though it will try to be daring and to play on the 1950's genre films and paranoia that went with it, but these are only flirtations and it soon gets back on to safe ground and box ticking. It all trundles along well enough, the first two acts being mechanical but enjoyable, working towards a big set-piece that feels like an ending. The trouble is, it isn't the ending. It carries on. What happens afterwards doesn't really work though and it all becomes a bit tiresome, still chucking the gags at you, enough to keep you amused, but not enough to stop you thinking about something else.

One thing this movie does have is sublime animation. It's very ambitious and relatively realistic looking so the big action scenes do look superb. A huge battle on the Golden Gate Bridge, particularly stands out as well as the real finale aboard a huge spaceship.

Once I got to that finale though and the credits rolled, I was surprised at how little effect the film had on me. It seems that the Dreamworks formula has a flaw. It does not factor in a heart, something that Pixar would not dare to forget. Films like Up, Wall-E and the Toy Story trilogy all tick the same boxes but do it with a dash of flair and creativity and above all else characterisation that really makes the viewer care what is happening.

Monsters vs Aliens is good fun, it's entertaining, it is funny (the American President should get special mention), the voice acting is well done, the action is gripping, but the whole film is instantly forgettable. It was perfect for the hungover mood I was in, disposable entertainment to go with the dirty grub I was guiltily putting away, but it's not something I would ever seek out again.