Movie Review: The Green Hornet (Worth the Buzz...)

“I need a sidekick. I will begin to look for a short, Chinese man,” I said.

My wife gave me a blank look and silence in return.

“A short, Chinese man,” I repeated.

Same look. Same silence.

“A SHORTER, Chinese man, then...?”

Same silence, but this time, her eyes rolled upwards.

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The above is the aftermath of our movie date that included Seth Rogen’s “The Green Hornet,” last Friday evening. I don’t remember genuinely laughing at a superhero movie like last Friday evening.

Seth Rogen made the Green Hornet cool.

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Seth Rogen stars as Britt Reid, a bumbling party-boy scion of a media mogul who was murdered for being a principled newspaperman. He then inherits his father’s media empire, including a short genius Asian/Chinese butler named Kato. Kato built his own cappuccino machine, war vehicles that look like vintage cars, gas guns and more, all the while not caring to run to the patent office to get rich from all that. I guess Kato’s not much of a genius after all. But then again, the Chinese never really cared about intellectual property anyways. So Kato chooses to become the good Asian servant and bow his Asian head down to serve the American man Italian cappuccino and an American breakfast of chopped fruit most likely cut using American branded knives that were manufactured in China.

Of course, it’s easy to assume racist undertones in a movie character conceived back in the Art Deco America of the 1900’s. Tall, rich white guy... short Asian guy slaving for him... Asian guy not getting the sexy white chick... I mean, if Kato was black, Eddie Murphy would have enough racist stand-up material to revive his zombie career. But no, Asians will not do racially-charged stand-up and get a major movie career in the U.S. of A. Deportation is not an option here.

So Reid uses his father’s newspaper to create hype for his newly-minted “Green Hornet” persona to gain street cred and supposedly tear the underworld down from the inside. Except that without his Asian genius sidekick, Reid is nothing more than a spoiled pudgy white brat who can’t do shit to save his American life. Please be reminded that we are talking about movie characters here, not countries per se.

A few entertainingly bumbling fights scenes, gratuitous destruction of property and predictable character epiphanies later, everyone lives happily ever after.

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Now, I will exact revenge on the Americans and find myself a Caucasian midget who will be my superhero sidekick, and make a movie out of it. But i will save people money by not showing it in 3D when it has no right, nor need to be, like “The Green Hornet.” We only caught the 3D showing because it was a full half an hour earlier than the 2D one.

But yes, i loved it. Although i honestly don’t see a franchise coming.
‘catch you later.