Movie Review The Green Hornet

The Green Hornet (2011) 

Directed by Michel Gondry

Written by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg

Starring Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Cameron Diaz, Edward James Olmos, Christoph Waltz

Release Date January 14th, 2011

Published Janurary 13th, 2011

Seth Rogen does not exactly cut the figure of a superhero. Luckily, that is kind of the point of this reboot of the old school masked hero “The Green Hornet;” he's not the real hero. Though he wears a mask and rolls around Los Angeles in a seriously pimped out superhero car, “The Green Hornet'' is a make believe hero while his martial artist, super-mechanic pal Kato is the real hero; beating down bad guys with a superhuman fighting sense while the Hornet grabs the glory on the front page.

Faux heroism is played for terrific laughs in the at times uneven but overall entertaining “The Green Hornet 3D.”

Seth Rogen stars in “The Green Hornet” as Britt Reid, a 30 something child of privilege who uses his father's wealth as an excuse to remain a teenager for life. Then, suddenly his father (Tom Wilkinson) is dead and Britt has an empire to run. Dad was the founder and editor of the last family owned newspaper in Los Angeles, The Sentinel and though Britt has never even read a newspaper, it's now his to run.

Meanwhile, Britt meets the man who has made his coffee for the past decade. Kato (Jay Chou) was his father's mechanic and coffee hound, he invented a latte machine, and now he works for Britt. Together, Britt and Kato share a disdain for the late Mr. Reid and a bitch session turns into a night of vandalism and then accidental crime fighting. The night is a life changing moment for both Reid and Kato as after saving a couple from some gang members they get a taste for the rush of the hero biz.

The twist in this hero story however is that instead of being good guys, Britt and Kato will be good guys who pose as bad guys in order to get to the bad guys. Using the editorial power of The Sentinel, Britt creates the persona of “The Green Hornet '' as the ultimate big bad in Los Angeles. Naturally, the current big bad, Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz), is none too happy with some nobody usurping his front page headlines. Chudnofsky has spent the past decade shedding blood and selling drugs to get where he is and he's not about to cede the bad guy spotlight.

That's the table setting of “The Green Hornet,” the meal as prepared by director Michel Gondry is a tweaking of the superhero formula that is both true to the classic adventure hero stories and a sly send up of the same in the casting of comic actor Rogan as the pseudo-hero. Rogen, with writing partner Evan Goldberg, wrote the screenplay for “The Green Hornet” and plays wickedly on his lack of hero traits. Some of the biggest laughs in The Green Hornet come cleverly at the star's expense

and as Rogan and Gondry cleverly twist the hero they give new life to the role of sidekick. Jay Chou's Kato is a rather ingenious invention as he bounces well off of Rogan while being a total badass fighter. Chou is a walking special effect and with Gondry’s artful eye for demonstrating his talent, Chou breaks the mold of not just the sidekick but of Asian American movie stars in Hollywood features. 

Badder than Jackie Chan and more fun than Jet Li, Chou may be a martial artist but he's not so serious about it that he can't bust out a chorus of Coolio's “Gangster's Paradise” prior to whipping out some nunchucks and breaking bad guys faces and limbs. Interesting to note, Chou is a pop star in Asia and has a killer closing rap over the credits. Trust me when I say the song is no mere novelty and even fans who don't speak the language will be hard pressed not to nod along to this groove. 

”The Green Hornet '' is not without issues. Christoph Waltz works hard not to be the same colorful villain he was in his Oscar winning role in “Inglorious Bastards and winds up coming off a little flat for the effort. The final action scene set inside the walls of the newspaper as the bad guys chase the good guys, car and all, through the cubicle lined floors of the newspaper goes on a little too long and doesn't pay off strongly enough. 

That said the good more than outweighs the bad in “The Green Hornet.” Seth Rogen's sense of humor is smartly played against a familiar superhero story turned ever so slightly on its ear. Audiences will have to really like Rogan for much of the movie to work but fans of the “Knocked Up” star will be rewarded with a unique evolution of Rogan's clumsy, good hearted galoot character.

Movie Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) 

Directed by Michel Gondry 

Written by Charlie Kaufman

Starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, Tom Wilkinson

Release Date March 19th, 2004

Published March 18th, 2004 

Jim Carrey's attempts to move into “legitimate acting" are often maligned even before they are seen, even by people who call themselves fans. It seems that whenever someone leaves their comfortable, often-mediocre niche we Americans have set aside for them. We go out of our way to shove them back in with harsh and often unfair conjecture. Jim Carrey is a very obvious victim of this niche society.

His latest attempt to escape his niche is the Charlie Kaufmann scripted Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Carrey plays a somber, sweet, romantic lost soul while Kaufmann's script provides the weirdness that Carrey usually provides with his physical schtick.

Carrey is Joel Barish who one day decides to blow off work and take a train to his favorite beach. Nevermind that its winter. On the train ride back, Joel meets Clementine (Kate Winslet), an acid-tongued wild child with an obvious sweetness beneath her punk veneer. They begin a tentative flirtation that is about to lead to Joel's bed when suddenly the opening credits roll and the film begins again.

From there, we are lost in a time warp of Joel's memories and sadness. After Joel and Clementine broke up, Clementine went to a place called Lacuna Corp and had all of her memories of Joel erased. Out of spite, Joel goes to Lacuna to do the same to her. With the guidance of Lacuna's founder Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) and his staff, Joel is told that all of his relationship can be eliminated with a procedure that is technically brain damage, but is only “on par with a night of heavy drinking.”

Joel agrees to the procedure, which is to take place in his apartment while he sleeps. A pair of Lacuna technicians (Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood) come to Joel's apartment after he's asleep and spend the night erasing his memory. Once Joel is actually undergoing the process, he realizes there are some memories of Clementine he does not want to give up. His fight to save some of those good memories is the thrust of the plot.

Who doesn't have a relationship that they would consider erasing from their memory? For me it would be Michele, my high school girlfriend. We were together for three years as a couple and several years as friends afterwards. We loved and we hated in almost equal measure the entire time we've known each other. For all of the pain that she caused me and I caused her there are a number of really good times that I would not be willing to give up. That is the central theme of the film and the way it's explored on the screen is not just the film projecting emotion on to the audience. Rather, the audience is a participant in the emotion.

The film is not exactly as straightforward as I describe it. Writer Charlie Kaufmann and director Michel Gondry have a number of unique twists and turns that make Eternal Sunshine an amazing, mind-bending experience. It's an old school science-fiction storytelling device using technology, in this case a rather low-tech technology, to tell a very human story. Sci-fi without aliens or complicated special effects, sci-fi just used to tell a good story in a very different way.

This is a rather uncomplicated, almost simplistic way to write a relatable story. Painful breakups are a universal experience and Kaufmann uses that universality as a jumping off point to a different way to tell a sad, romantic story. There have been movies that explored the same themes of love and loss. What Kaufmann does is what the best modern screenwriters do, take a conventional idea and twist it. Plots that have been done to death can still be done well if you give them at least one unique twist.

With the help of a Michel Gondry's visual mastery, Charlie Kaufmann found more than one unique twist he could give to the love and loss story, the romantic comedy and the sci-fi picture. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a film that should be shown in film classes for years to come as inspiration for original ideas from traditional sources.

For Jim Carrey, this is yet another brilliant performance that will go unnoticed. The film is unlikely to make many waves at the box office and despite positive critical notice, the March release of the film dooms its Oscar hopes. Carrey can still take heart however in the one truth of great art. It's never appreciated in it's own time. Maybe years from now someone will dig this film out of a vault with barely a memory of Carrey's schtick and discover Carrey's talent.