The Green Hornet

Britt Reid (Rogen) is the playboy heir to a media empire, who prefers the life of the party to a life of responsibility. When the unexpected death of his father (Wilkinson) leaves Brett as publisher of the paper, he unwittingly inherits Kato (Chou) his father’s underappreciated driver and assistant, and upon inadvertently stopping a robbery, the pair team up to form a masked vigilante duo that combines high-tech gadgetry with a sleek getaway car named ‘Black Beauty’.

Green Hornet combines the charms of a superhero team-up and a buddy cop drama, handled by Gondry with a flamboyant humour and ironic visual style that brings to mind Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin. Chou executes the martial arts sequences with a graceful ease, and Rogen grasps the mixture of humour and intellect which characterised Reid exactly. Whilst the intention behind Green Hornet was primarily an effort to update the TV franchise for a modern cinema going audience, the characters still retain their old spirit but benefit from an increased appeal, creditable to a more convincing script.

The film very much relies on the allure of the technology the team use to combat crime, and when united with the prop based humour and striking fast paced sequences, Green Hornet emerges from the fray as fun frolic and a solid action film. While it fails to bring anything innovative to the genre, the film is an honest adaptation of the classic show popularised by Van Williams and Bruce Lee.

Aimée Crickmore