The Green Hornet

Many of us have fond memories from our childhoods of the dashing superhero, classic villains, and observant detectives. The most common place to find these characters was often the local comic book shop. Within the next year there will be an influx of movies adapted from comic books such as The Avengers, Captain America, Cat Woman, Batman, Tin Tin and Superman. However, where is this new fad going? Are these movies examples of Hollywood gone sour, or can the child-hood inspired superhero win their way back into the hearts and minds of a new audience? When one thinks of comic books that are successfully adapted for the big screen they may think of Batman, Blade, Spider Man or Men in Black. However, the recent movie Green Hornet does not immediately spring to mind as a movie which will go down in history as a great adaptation of a once famous comic book.

The Green Hornet is based upon an American radio and comic book masked vigilante created by George Trendle and Fran Striker. The story begins predictably with a prelude of the main character, Britt Reid, who as a child has an ambition to be a super hero. His father, the owner of the major newspaper in his city becomes disappointed in him when he continuously gets in trouble at school for trying to stop fights. This then leaves the son feeling like a failure throughout his life growing up to be surrounded by women and wild parties, now played by Seth Rogan. Meanwhile the city has a new mob boss in town named Chudnofsky, played by Christoph Waltz who is most notable for his role as the villain in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards. However, in the Green Hornet he doesn’t seem quite scary enough to be the villian. The first scene sees him being introduced to a new drug dealer and club owner Crystal Clear, played by James Franco. Clear makes fun of him for not being ‘scary’ throwing such insults as  ‘Disco Santa’ and ‘passed his prime’ while all the while pronouncing his name incorrectly. Chudnofsky becomes extremely upset by this so pulls out his double barreled gun shooting four guys in two shots leaving just Clear. He then continues to ask how he could be scarier, asking if his gun is scary enough and going into details on how it was made. It’s as though Chudnofsky is experiencing a midlife crisis. He then leaves the club blowing off a bomb inside, pulling the typical bad-ass move of not looking back when an explosion goes off.

Just as anticipated something unfortunate happens leaving Britt to run his father’s company and ‘clean up the streets.’ At first Britt rebels against this by chopping off the head of his father’s statue and firing everyone who worked for his father. However, knowing he cannot work alone he befriends Kato, an employee of his father. This friendship leads to the beginning of the green hornet with several more explosions and other ridiculousness. At one point they are driving around the top floor of a skyscraper with the entire back of their car missing. Anyone over the age of eight might suspect this scene would not end so well in real life.

Adaptions of comic books to movies do not need to be ‘realistic,’ however there is fine line between a childhood hero fantasy and pure absurdity. After the movie was finished it was hard to determine whether the director wanted to impress, alienate, or directly insult its core audience. At times it seemed that the movie was trying to be the next greatest superhero and other times it had the mental capacity of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. It will probably make millions for Hollywood as a big budget blockbuster full of an impressive cast and explosions. However, it wasn’t a reminder of the comic books many of us read as children. So here is hoping that the new movies, based on adaptions of comic books, will be much more impressive and allow new generations to enjoy the heroes of the past.