Kevin Smith tells an anecdote in his stand-up specials about how he would've done this film, if he'd gone ahead and directed it like he was once slated to, however many years ago that was. He says: "My version of 'The Green Hornet' would be the Green Hornet and Kato, leaning against the Black Beauty, the amazing super-car that can do anything, and talking about pussy. And then Kato would be like, 'Hey, is that a crime happening over there?' (Pointing off camera, wouldn't even pan to it.) The Hornet would be like, 'Hey, you're right. We should do something about it. Let's roll, Kato.' And then they step out of the frame, and we hold on the car, and we just hear shit—ass kicking—and then the two come back and they're just like, 'Oh totally dude, anal sex has nothing to do-' and, just roll from there. But no one wants to make that movie." Ha, Kevin, jokes on you. Michel Gondry's 'Green Hornet' is a series of weightless epiphanies and action sequences that—though pretty visually unique considering what is the common formal approach to chase scenes and beat-'em-ups in modern action cinema—don't ever really amount to much narratively either.

Rather than approach this character in a self-serious light, Gondry sees some of the ridiculousness inherent in him that Smith saw, which by itself isn't a fault; the Green Hornet and Kato are a pair of characters whose dynamic relies almost exclusively on the time period they came out of, and even in the sixties, when Bruce Lee and that other guy took to the small screen, eyebrows were raised—especially considering the weaselly justification for having an Asian manservant at that point of time. To be fair, Gondry does manage to work his way around those kinds of politically correct problems with a deft hand, eschewing the aforementioned relationship for one that wouldn't be too unfamiliar to a fan of buddy-cop movies by way of Judd Apatow; it's a couple of post-adolescent guys out on a lark, more than anything else. Rather than have the motivation for their donning of costumed identities come out of anything tragic or operatic, Seth Rogen's Brett Reid instead creates his alter-ego, the Green Hornet and his sidekick's "war on crime" mantra after a night of drunken bonding and shared hatred of Brett Reid, Sr (Tom Wilkinson). But the film's problems aren't its aims: they're its haphazard execution. There was a real possibility for this to be the first out-and-out superhero comedy not aiming to some cynical genre deconstruction—just a fun bit of superheroing by way of a couple lovable goons. That seems to be what Gondry was trying to do, but his sights are off.

Gondry's rendition of that most famous two-fisted pulp paragon “The Green Hornet” is a really strange film. I don't mean in that quirky, typically twee Gondry sort of way—it's just a fuckin' weird movie. Everything about it feels two inches to the left of where it should be, or where it seems like it's trying to go. It has this hazy, emotionally confused narrative progression and focus that places almost nil importance on sequences that would be, in a more traditional superhero film, meaty character building moments. It instead breezes by these sequences with a light touch that's striving for something just this side of cartoony and visually nostalgic, with its curious emphasis on bold Technicolor compositions that recall the variety seen in the older Bruce Lee TV show. But then, every so often, the film will pause during a giant set-piece—most of which are entirely incidental in relation to anything else in the film—and cut to some lackey or henchman being crushed by a boulder or the bisected half of the Black Beauty, for example, something the film has a peculiar obsession with—or just someone being shot in the head. The camera will then linger there, for a good amount of time, and give us a stark, sudden shot of the guy's broken, dead body beneath the fallen debris. It doesn't seem to be there for any real reason, and the film resumes its madcap monotony without a flinch soon afterward, without paying any attention to it—which is even more disquieting.

This kind of thing happens constantly with 'Hornet'—because the film has no real sense of emotional rhythm or narrative pace and just proceeds full-speed ahead with scene after scene after scene of 'things happening, and then more things happen.' Moments that are actually kind of important are given the same level of relevance as Rogen's comic attempts at office romance, and you're wafted along in a daze until suddenly you realize that you have absolutely no idea what's going on, despite how hard you've squinted your eyes to pay attention. By the end of the film, somehow, Kato—who just moments before was indulging in some kind of double-double cross and aiming a gun at Reid's head—and the Green Hornet are engaging in a chase sequence inside a glass elevator. There's a bunch of sound and fury from every which direction and people are getting crushed in a manner that jolts you out of the set-piece, and there's heart-thumping techno music, and- gaaah! It's almost a little bit like that Louis CK joke from his recent “Hilarious” tour, where it all just amounts to noise and anger being pelted at your face, repeatedly. And for what purpose?

On the other end of things, this has to be said: I don't know whether or not Gondry's done anything that could be considered an action set-piece before this, but regardless of just how unimportant they are in the grand scheme of things here, each and every one of these sequences shows a degree of ingenuity that truly stands out, as is to be expected of this filmmaker, especially in a genre marked by a reliance on formal repetition. The two sequences where everything slows down and we follow Kato as he systematically takes out scores of goons are ingeniously choreographed, and show a far stronger control of slow-motion than anything that Zach Snyder was able to do with his “Watchmen” two years ago. And Gondry plays with 3-D montage—layering image over image—later on in the movie in a way that is still making me scratch my head trying to figure out how they did it—not to mention any of the various ways that he implicitly recalls the older sixties series by way of silhouette and geographical shapes and shadows being blasted onto the walls. In this, the film poses some real interest—because, damn, look at Jay Chou go. Filling the role of Kato, the guy may not speak a word of English without a phonetics coach, but he lends himself well to the stunt team.

Review by:
Henry J. Baugh