It's Full Of Movies

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The Green Hornet

We're in the early stages of the downfall of the superhero genre. Of that fact I am certain. I don't hold any illusions that the genre will ever die, and I'm sure it will find a resurgence again one day, but if the first era of superhero began with Batman and ended with Batman & Robin, then the second era that started with Spider-Man seems to be nearing it's end. The Green Hornet is a perfect example of why. Much like we saw in the 90's with The Shadow and The Phantom, studios are now scrapping the bottom of the barrel in search of any properties to adapt. Where once we got X-Men, now we get The Green Hornet. Certainly not a horrible movie, Hornet is still so by the numbers that it is little more than an afterthought of the genre.

The Green Hornet treads familiar waters here. When a young playboy's father is killed, he realizes he's been wasting his life aimlessly chasing women and decides to become a superhero and fight crime. He enlists his father's mechanic Kato to help him, and Kato ends up being the real hero. It's a cross between Batman and Big Trouble in Little China, halfheartedly aping both. Really, the issue is that there is no story here. In retrospect, it feels like the duo never actually fight crime. Sure, they talk about the fact they're fighting crime, and we see newspapers claiming that they're all over the city, but aside from a showdown at the end of the film, they only have one, maybe two moments where they actually tangle with street thugs. instead, much of the film focuses on the banter between The Hornet and Kato. You'd think that would be a good thing in a Seth Rogen film, but sadly that's just as halfhearted as everything else.

The chemistry between Rogen and Jay Chou as Kato is severely lacking. Maybe it's the fact Chou isn't very good with English, maybe it's because Rogen seems out of his element in a film like this, but the comedy is often as weak as the action. The only highlight is Christoph Waltz as the villain Chudnofsky. Chudnofsky is an incredibly generic crime boss, and he knows it. The biggest laughs came from him grappling with the fact that in a world of superheroes, no one finds a businessman in a suit especially frightening. His slow descent into madness is amusing, as is his complete misunderstanding of what makes a supervillain scary. He rechristens himself Bloodnofsky, dresses in a red suit and a gas mask, and looks completely foolish. While it would have been nice to see what Waltz could have done with a really interesting villain, he does enough with Chudnofsky to make him amusingly forgettable, which is kind of the point. The rest of the cast is utterly wasted. Tom Wilkinson is removed from the film almost from the start. Edward Furlong and Edward James Olmos are wasted in roles beneath them. And Cameron Diaz seems to come in from a completely different film. It's clear that she's there just because a studio executive didn't think a superhero movie can work without a love interest, no matter how perfunctory.

Director Michel Gondry seems at times to be at odds with the material he's been given. His ability to film action is clearly lacking. Many scenes are shot too close up or too darkly to make anything out. The few set pieces the film has all feel incredibly generic. But when the film isn't trying to be an action movie, he will throw in flourishes that seem like they deserve to be in a much better film. One moment in particular really made me wonder how they pulled it off. A henchman tells another henchman to find The Green Hornet, and the screen then splits in two without cutting, following both men as they pass the word along. Each person they come into contact with then splits off without the film cutting. The screen fills with numerous different panels, none with any discernible cuts, leaving us wondering how Gondry accomplished the image we're seeing. It's a creative way to illustrate a normally mundane aspect of a film like this. Gondry would throw in little touches like this every once in a while, almost as if he was bored by the material and needed to do something to keep himself challenged. While these moments can't save the film, they make it at times more watchable than it otherwise would be.

With a number of big superhero franchises falling apart (X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman), and an upcoming onslaught of low tier superhero movies (Thor, The Green Lantern), things seem dire for the genre. Certainly not the worst film the genre has produced, The Green Hornet still suffers immensely from a lack of identity. It wants to be Batman, but it needs to be its own thing, whatever that thing may be. It fails at being either, and as a result it just comes across as tired and forgettable. The Green Hornet was once a major property in the days of radio, but the transition to the modern age doesn't suit the character in any way. If studios can't show some restraint in greenlighting movies like this, they're going to make the genre as a whole a lot less special. Movies like The Dark Knight are becoming the exception, not the rule.

Remembering Pete Postlethwaite

1946-2011

What a sad way to start the new year. Pete Postlethwaite has passed away, and while the name may not be immediately recognizable, he is certainly one of the great "That Guy" actors. While he would often take small roles in movies, you knew a director was going the extra mile to flesh out their characters when they cast Postlethwaite. When you look at the films he played a part in, you begin to realize that he is woven into the fabric of the last twenty years of cinema: Inception, The Town, The Usual Suspects, The Lost World, Romeo + Juliet, Amistad, The Constant Gardner, Alien 3, and of course In the Name of the Father, among many others. It was that latter film for which he got a well deserved Oscar nomination, breaking out of his reputation as just a character actor and getting the recognition he richly deserved. A few years later, Steven Spielberg even proclaimed him to be the best actor in the world. Because he wasn't a marquee name actor, you never knew when he might show up in a film you were watching. I always found myself delighted when Postlethwaite would show up unexpectedly in a film, and going to the movies won't be the same knowing he won't be there to provide some much appreciated gravitas.