Stung by The Green Hornet

Have you seen the trailer? If not, watch it. The good parts are pretty much all in there.

What It's About

Basically the premise is that Britt Reid (Seth Rogen), party boy and good-for-nothing, inherits his father's newspaper, The Daily Sentinel after the man dies from a bee sting in his own garden. He meets and teams up with Kato (Jay Chou), his father's go-to guy for cars and coffee (yes, coffee), who also happens to be somewhat of a brilliant engineer, scientist and martial arts expert. Together, with the advice of Reid's secretary Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), they blow up meth labs and pick fights with the gangs of LA in an attempt to appear as villains to the press so as to infiltrate the criminal underworld. They inadvertently rub the kingpin of LA, Chudnovsky (Christoph Waltz) the wrong way and he tries to kill them, climaxing in an elaborate fight scene between the duo in the Daily Sentinel building.

The Good

The script was fun and entertaining for the most part, kudos to Rogen for his contributions (he did co-write the award-winning Superbad afterall). Waltz did a good job in portraying the jaded kingpin of the LA underworld and the fight scenes were very well choreographed. It was also a nice surprise to have James Franco cameo at the beginning of the movie.

The Blah

3D, 3D, 3D. I don't know why so many movies are made "3D" nowadays. Is it for the receipts? Does an additional $4 on every ticket make a difference? Or is done simply to show off "Hey, we can do this cool shit with his eyes! Check it out!" or "Hey look at this other cool shit we can do with the lights!"? I mean, c'mon, most of the movie wasn't filmed in 3D. And for the parts that were (aka the fight scenes), they were mediocre, save for the ending credits that actually looked pretty amazing in 3D compared to the rest of the movie.

The Nasty

Where should I start? Hmmmm. Let's talk about Jay Chou's acting. One word: FAIL. Seriously. Whose bright idea was to cast this joke of an actor who only has one (yes, ONE) facial expression i.e. the perpetual frown, to act in a big budget Hollywood movie? Granted, he's a great musician and singer, but he can't act to save his life. I cringed every time he delivered a line and I stifled my laughter when he tried to emote. Actually, I think I LOLed in real life for a couple of times in the cinema.

Also, I'd like to know who decided that Cameron Diaz should play the role of the "hot secretary"? She was hot fifteeen years ago, not anymore, and probably not ever again. I mean, she was nominated for "Most Desirable Female" at the MTV Movie Awards in 1994. Yes, 1994. Damn, now I feel old. She looked real haggard and washed-up in the movie, and I actually felt bad for her. Poor thing. Dear Ms Diaz, please say no to roles like that in the future. You need to move on from the "token hot blonde" roles cos you don't fit the bill no more. Just sayin'.

Should You See It?

It's really up to you. If you're up for some mindless fun and can put up with bad acting (since Jay Chou is in almost every other scene), this is the movie for you. If not, wait for it on Netflix. Just don't watch it in 3D.