comment #1

actionlover says ...

....and yet 80% of the posters on this site will be seeing it opening weekend. ("...I know it's probably really bad, but..)

comment #2

JLC says ...

I think you could do an interesting film about the Hornet if it was told from the point-of-view of someone that has no idea he's a hero. But since that's never going to happen, yeah, not much interest here. Still love the car, though.

comment #3

Mark says ...

In Waltz's defense, i don't think playing the villain in a Gondry flick at an outrageous quote is something we should judge too harshly.

comment #4

Markj74 says ...

"This is one of those big movies that make you feel as if you're being poisoned. You sit in your seat feeling like Alexander Litvinenko succumbing to radioactive polonium-210. This is what corporate entertainment has become in the 21st Century -- a kind of meditative near-death experience."

Brilliant Jeff, laughing so hard right now.

comment #5

Eloi Wrath says ...

Nice review. Yet, as actionlover suggests, I'll go see it anyway because I'm generally a fan of Rogen.

Can't really blame Waltz for cashing in. The dude toiled for years on Austrian TV before getting his big break late in his career. Perfectly entitled to make some money while his stock is high. Plus he's got a few more credible indie dramas on the way, so he's not quite Nicolas Cage yet.

This could certainly be the year that audiences finally burn out on superheroes. With Thor and Captain America and Green Lantern on the way too, all of which are looking distinctly shitty, we could be nearing the end.

comment #6

THE MovieBob says ...

There's really no defending a naked "do WE own any of these masked guys what're so popular right now?" cash-grab like this, but it does continue to irk me that people - mostly critics - only seem to notice or care about reliance on formula when it's in certain genres, mostly scifi/fantasy or (now) anything relating to the superhero angle.

Every single person going to see "The King's Speech" whose seen ONE "classy" overcoming-handicap movie can call the entire thing beat-for-beat. It's every bit as adherent to formula as this is and the next comic thing will be, but for some reason that doesn't count...

comment #7

Krillian says ...

Such violent imagery against ComicCon-ers. Clutch the pearls.

But railing against superhero movies is like railing against rom-coms or horror flicks. Try as you might, the genre will never go away. But... how many superhero movies (part 1) have been done with the origin story part already out of the way?

I'm not ready to write off Christoph Waltz just yet. He has this and Water for Elephants, but then he will be in Gods of Carnage, and we'll see where his choices go from there.

comment #8

DiscoNap says ...

A Wells review for the ages. Think I might actually sit this one out.

comment #9

Rashad says ...

Hating on Waltz already? Really? He's got Water for Elephants and God of .... whatever that Polanski movie is.

This can't be worse than Be Kind Rewind.

I'd rather sit through this, than another indie film about a privileged white person who just can't seem to get their life in order.

comment #10

THE MovieBob says ...

Might as well get this is there, too: "Hornet" is pretty much just forgettable nonsense; but I'd see it twice more IN the shitty post-conversion 3D before I'd suffer through the "other" new movie this weekend, which is going to be on A LOT of "is it too early to name the year's worst" lists...

comment #11

Floyd Thursby says ...

"I'd rather sit through this, than another indie film about a privileged white person who just can't seem to get their life in order."

Amen, brother. Even Knight and Day seems like a breath of fresh air after seeing The Kids Are All Right.

comment #12

Tristan Eldritch2 says ...

"What a shock that Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Human Nature, The Science of Sleep), a signature director with a recognizable aesthetic, decided to whore out with this thing." I'm not even a Gondry fan, but that was my exact reaction to the trailer. When I heard Gondry was doing a superhero flick, I assumed he'd inform the source material with his personal aesthetic,like Burton did with Batman way back when. That obviously didn't happen. I wonder was he just looking for a fat paycheck, or did he begin with artistic aspirations and have them flattened by studio interference?

comment #13

corey3rd says ...

a big 3D shit sandwich

deserves to go on the Times ad

comment #14

arispil says ...

Other than Eternal Sunshine, which was pretty brilliant EQUALLY b/c of the script and the direction/visuals, what exactly has Gondry proven in Hollywood? Nothing. The other films he's done have been boring and quasi-indesipherable. Not sure why he's so highly touted. He's a visual director ONLY. That's why he's done 100000 music videos. He's good at that. He should go back to doing what he's good at.

comment #15

MilkMan says ...

I blame all of you for Seth Rogen. And as punishment, may all of you have to suffer through the next 20-30 films he will star in, direct, write, produce, whatever. Fatboy is a fraud and has been since day one. His eventual body of work is going to make Rob Reiner's look like The Kuchar Brothers'. By all means, please spend your 15 dollars to support this asshole.

Someone needs to buy Rogen some good weed, because the shit he smokes obviously isn't working the way it is supposed to.

comment #16

JR says ...

sounds miserable, and I am still catching up on 2010, so I will give this one a pass...

comment #17

CitizenKaned4Life says ...

Agreed about this having to be better than Be Kind, Rewind. Gondry's in a tight spot, though. If for his next feature, he chooses yet another one "for them," he's in pretty serious danger of killing his "artiste" cred that gets him hired onto these projects on a "hip director" in the first place. What he needs to do most, of course, is another re-team with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who seems to be MIA -- to the point of being ghostly -- after his directorial debut. Another Eternal Sunshine would boost both of their stock, big-time (of course, the actual chances of another collaboration being anywhere as good as that masterpiece are close to infinitesimal). At least we'll always have his music videos -- which is probably still the medium he works best in anyway, honestly.

I'm with Eloi on Waltz making like the Steve Miller Band by taking the money and running. The vast majority of those B-listers that Tarantino hires as some sort of Hollywood reclamation project hardly ever pan out from a "working actor/actress" point of view. Travolta was obviously an exception, but everyone remembered liking him in high-visibility '70s work like Saturday Night Fever and Welcome Back, Kotter. I can't even remember the last time I saw Robert Forster or Pam Grier in a mainstream, non-DTV release. Zoe Bell's only popped up in a very limited role in a few select things...per her IMdB page, she's mostly doing stunts (which is cool, I guess). Melanie Laurent???

"It's a co-creation of actor-producer-screenwriter Seth Rogen, co-writer Evan Goldberg, director Michel Gondry, and everyone else who tried to make this into a film, going back to the '90s."

It is a fairly extensive list. Has anyone read the ten-part comic by Kevin Smith (collected as two graphic novels on Amazon)? It essentially chronicles the exact story he was going to tell on film on the printed (comic) page. He actually had to get permission to do this per his contract with Sony -- they owned the copyright to his story -- but luckily they were pretty cool about it (they didn't see it as any sort of direct competition to the theatrical film, and rightly so). It's a pretty interesting experiment, though; does anyone know of anything like this happening before?

Markj -- Why are you laughing? J.J. Abrams didn't direct The Green Hornet!

comment #18

Triple H says ...

Who thought this was a good idea?

comment #19

Mark says ...

Yes, Milkman. If the shit needs to land somewhere, let us direct it to Rogen. The guy doesn't have it. If his life story was retold in the mold of Exit Through the Gift, a hoodied and disguised Apatow would talk about how Rogen's casting in Knocked Up started as a joke on the studio, and for some reason the paying public ended up being conned by the guy.

comment #20

Blue says ...

Does the movie at least use the fabulous TV theme?

comment #21

raygo says ...

What MilkMan said.

comment #22

DavidF says ...

I don't have high hopes for this and it may well be crap, but it's still pretty pointless to ask Jeff about anything comics related.

Also, does the Navy still use F14s?

comment #23

Guy Who Wants to Bang Pamela Anderson says ...

What raygo said.

comment #24

Gabe@ThePlaylist says ...

The problem is that as a screenwriter, Rogen and Goldberg are all gags and digressions. Superhero movies, even the most unconventional ones, are all structure structure structure. Bad fit for the material. And Rogen needs to do some real acting. This was more of his familiar onscreen schtick, but dialed up to 11 as far as obnoxiousness. Seriously, his Britt Reid is such a massive twat.

Blue, the theme song only surfaces, lamely, at the end. Huge disappointment. And, for the super nerds, no mention of Lone Ranger, in case you were wondering.

comment #25

nightheat says ...

i had no clue this was being released friday... aren't these comic book films backed up by massive promotional machines? man, my mind is blown. anyway, i love it when you wail on comic book culture and have no plans to see this, or 95% of the films released this year. thats all.

comment #26

Eloi Wrath says ...

Christ, MilkMan is the most consistently joyless presence on this site. When was the last time he said anything enthusiastic about any kind of film?

Rogen will be fine. He has a couple of indie dramas coming up this year (the Sarah Polley thing and the cancer one, forgot the titles) so he'll get to show a different side there. And even if the movie roles dry up, he'll find something to do on HBO. He's a funny and talented guy. No surprise that the frustrated screenwriters on the HE boards regard him as public enemy no. 1.

comment #27

dino velvet says ...

I can't wait for the Gene Shalit-esque review headlines to roll in :

-The Green Hornet has no sting!
-No buzz for The Green Hornet.
-The Green Hornet is a solid Bee-movie.
-Gondry creates a swarm of interesting visuals!

comment #28

Terry McCarty says ...

CitizenKaned4Life wrote:
The vast majority of those B-listers that Tarantino hires as some sort of Hollywood reclamation project hardly ever pan out from a "working actor/actress" point of view.

Michael Parks is in Kevin Smith's upcoming RED STATE.

comment #29

Kakihara says ...

"What a shock that Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Human Nature, The Science of Sleep), a signature director with a recognizable aesthetic, decided to whore out with this thing. "

His recognizable aesthetic is aping 60s art films. But really, did you actually expect better from someone who came up with Be Kind, Rewind?
Anyway, my review's up here.

"I went into this thing believing that Rogen is a cool actor-writer with good humor instincts, and I came out of it wondering what's happened to the poor guy, and how could he have been part of something like this?"

I'm guessing he had creative control on Hornet, and it went to his head. 'Cus axing Stephen Chow was probably the dumbest fucking decision anyone could make on this project.

"But Chou is cool and contained and the brains of the partnership."

I haven't seen anything else with Chou besides the live-action Initial D, but if you wanna check out more of his work, they also released Curse of the Golden Flower here on DVD.

actionlover: I saw an advanced screening where they even gave us free 3-d glasses, so I'm fucking glad I don't have to actually pay for this monstrosity in any format. Rogen's basically a fatter, older, and drunker version of Shia in Transformers.

Anyway, my advice is to just watch the crossover episode with the Adam West Batman for free until Warner gets its head out of its ass. It's shorter, and less painful.

Eloi: Sorry, but Waltz came off like a poor man's Die Hard's Alan Rickman.

Milkman: The only Rogen movie I ever paid for was 40YOV. And that was for Carrell. I don't know why anyone thinks Rogen's a star, though.

comment #30

The Playlist says ...

Spot-on takedown. This movie is full on arse.

comment #31

MechanicalShark says ...

I'm really looking forward to Take this Waltz because I think Rogen has it in him to be an effective dramatic actor.

comment #32

CitizenKaned4Life says ...

"Michael Parks is in Kevin Smith's upcoming RED STATE."

That's true; I had forgotten about him. Seems like he has a pretty sizable role, to boot. Is that still coming out in March? Hardly seen anything about it save for one (teaser?) trailer.

Hopefully for Smith it gets some buzz going at Sundance or else it'll be DOA (which might actually be the case, regardless).

comment #33

CitizenKaned4Life says ...

"Anyway, my review's up here."

Ironic that someone who has such a vendetta against plagiarists tries to pass off other sites' reviews as his own.

You did not write this.

comment #34

mpneeb says ...

This review fits the movie perfectly.

Except... F14s are out of the inventory. F18s are a much better fit.

comment #35

Kakihara says ...

Kane: Uh, yeah, I did. If you don't believe me, read this.

comment #36

bulltron says ...

Good one, mpneeb. The F18 HORNET.

comment #37

CitizenKaned4Life says ...

So where does an unemployed, non-critic get to see The Green Hornet early, "Ningen?"

comment #38

MilkMan says ...

You are right, Eloi. I am a joyless presence. But I do see a lot of good movies.

Just watched IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WHISTLE last night. I enjoyed it.

I also enjoyed the Harry Nilsson doc.

Plus I loved HADEWIJCH and ENTER THE VOID, both of which I just watched on the On-Demand last week.

Kind of dug Scott Pilgrim too.

So that's five good movies in the last week.

I just don't like Seth Rogen. I mean, I really don't like him. He's one of those actors, I watch him, and I say, What am I missing? He's ugly, anti-charismatic and one of the most unsubtle actors working today. I thought OBSERVE AND REPORT was one of the funniest movies I had seen in a long time, and this was despite actively loathing Rogen the entire time.

Gotta admit, though, that I don't much care for Gondry either. He's good in 4 minute doses. HUMAN NATURE, SCIENCE OF SLEEP, BE KIND REWIND (ugh - that movie is utter and complete shit)and A THORN IN MY HEART are like sleeping pills to me. As for ETERNAL SUNSHINE..., well, I think we know who is responsible for that being a good movie.

comment #39

BobbyLupo says ...

So, wait, after all this time criticizing it absolutely, talking about how purely bad Tarantino is with no redeeming qualities, DZ would actually give 'Reservoir Dogs' a 4 out of 10? Isn't that an obvious lie?

comment #40

BobbyLupo says ...

"He actually had to get permission to do this per his contract with Sony -- they owned the copyright to his story"

How would Sony own the story? He wrote it for the Weinsteins. I would be Sony owned not only the underlying characters, but the exclusive right to put out a comic, and they let Kevin Smith put out his comic because it was cheaper for them than hiring a writer and would obviously sell much better.

comment #41

BobbyLupo says ...

"Every single person going to see "The King's Speech" whose seen ONE "classy" overcoming-handicap movie can call the entire thing beat-for-beat."

That's a genuinely stupid complaint. Anybody can predict that 'The King's Speech' is going to culminate with the King giving a speech, especially once the plot has set it up. What is difficult to predict, and such a wonderful surprise, is that the speech is a genuine moment of tension (unlike, say, the shitty fights at the end of 'The Fighter', which manage to have absolutely no tension whatsoever despite being FIGHTS IN A MOVIE).

People don't want genuinely unpredictable. They want predictable but done well. 'Green Hornet' fails not because it's predictable (as all comic book origins have been since the beginning of time) but because it's done poorly.

comment #42

CitizenKaned4Life says ...

Well, I can't a proper link to where Smith related the whole GH story, but it's out there somewhere (probably on his personal website). He did write it for the Weinsteins at Miramax back in the day. It was my understanding that once the film got transferred over to Sony wholesale, that KS's script was included in the deal, because it was still a possibility at that point. I could be completely wrong on that point, however; I'm just relying on my (very fault) memory.

I do know for certain, though, that there was no exclusive rights for the comic put in place beforehand. This was an idea Smith came up with on his own after he had officially departed the project. The comic was actually distributed by a Jersey company that has no corporate ties to Sony (at least that I'm aware of).

I specifically remember this detail because I remember how shocked/surprised he was that they (i.e. Sony, Miramax, whoever) let him publish his story when they could have very easily said "no," and legally that would have been the end of it.

comment #43

CitizenKaned4Life says ...

"(as all comic book origins have been since the beginning of time)"

While I generally agree with this, the contrarian in me just won't let you get away with such a blanket statement. There are always exceptions to everything (well, almost...there are of course even exceptions to having exceptions), and in this particular case, I would cite Alan Moore's The Killing Joke as a surprising and unpredictable creation of the Joker.

But yeah -- that's probably cheating a little bit. I really couldn't think of a good example for a superhero's origin, although I'm pretty sure at least one or two do exist.

comment #44

Kakihara says ...

Kane: AICN had a free L.A. screening, and I got on the list.

Lupo: I gave it a 4/10 for effort, not for being good. If I'm gonna say QT had any redeeming qualities, though, at least the songs he rips off, oops, I mean, 'remixes' are great.

And if I were trying to get a comic off the ground, I'd be more concerned with whichever owned the rights to Hornet.

comment #45

Kakihara says ...

Need to fix that link again, sigh...

comment #46

BobbyLupo says ...

Kaned - I was a big fan of the way the did the origin sequence in the Norton 'Hulk'. I think most comic book movies could do with that sort of brevity (not that the rest of the movie lives up to it).

And I guess it's possible that Sony owned the script, it just seems unusual. Usually script ownership doesn't work that way. But I suppose it would depend on a lot of things that I don't know about.

Oh, and the company that's doing them, they're not one of the big two, but describing them as just "a Jersey company" is... I don't want to say it's inaccurate, but Dynamite is a more high-profile comic book company than maybe you realize. They publish 'The Boys', one of the few books that isn't Marvel or DC that still sells anything. Based off of that, they've started doing more with licensed properties (Green Hornet must be licensed in one way or another, since they obviously didn't create it). It isn't like Kevin Smith gave the script to Avatar or even Boom!.

comment #47

THE MovieBob says ...

@Bobby,

Have to respectfully disagree about "King's Speech." Just based on the PITCH - "king of england can't talk, working-class doc helps him" - without even seeing so much as a trailer I think most anyone given to consider such things would tell you it'd include, in no particular order:

Dual-scenes emphasizing "cute similarities" between the class-seperated main characters, a "ha ha! people in the past were dumb!" scene about now-discredited medical advice, a "moving breakthrough" were The King reveals painful issue-causing trauma, a "wacky breakthrough" involving a "funny" unconventional treatment, an end-of-2nd-act "breakup" where the Rich Guy re-asserts the class-schism to reject the Poor Guy and a montage of secondary characters stoically nodding during the obligatory speech.

Another example: I haven't seen "Somewhere" yet. Haven't read any spoilers as far as I know. But I don't imagine I'd lose a bet that it ends with Possibly Redemptive Little Girl going away and Wealthy Directionless White Guy looking sad but vaugely "improved" by the experienced. Because that's how those movies end. Hell, "Social Network," which I LOVED, still ends exactly the same way as every other "gain world lose soul"/"are-the-rich-really-so-rich" movie.

Don't get me wrong, it ("Speech") is a serviceable little Day Trip With Auntie period piece thing, but I've seen episodes of "House" less rigidly-structured. Roger Moore-era 007 changed up the formula more than this does. And that's fine. Nothing wrong with it. But it's irritating as hell that the use of formula in everything else gets pass after pass, but the MINUTE someone notices that a "gearing up montage" in Iron Man looks similar to a "gearing up" montage in Batman suddenly the Old Guard becomes The Originality Police: "Bah! Damn superhero movies are all the same! Nothing new! Formulaic! Blight on the industry!"

I'll agree with you about Origin Stories, though: It's overdone, and it's unnecessary save for instances where the origin actually IS a solid three-act thing in and of itself (Spider-Man, for example, and Iron Man as it turns out.) For the most part I think it's born of mistaking "stuff-explaining" to "world-building" and of filmmakers assuming that the audience won't "go with" varying levels of unreality unless they're handed precise explanations for how everything works. If nothing else, I'm hoping that the "saturation" of the genre will get it to the point where there's no longer any need to spend 90 minutes explaining - for example - why Captain Such-And-Such wears a mask and cape to do his thing beyond "he's a superhero, that's what they do." Ironically, that pretty-much IS the explanation for Rogen's "Hornet"... and they STILL spend an entire fucking movie twisting the plot into knots to go "here's why a hornet, here's why green, here's why a mask," etc.

comment #48

BobbyLupo says ...

I'm not saying that 'King's Speech' doesn't follow a bunch of the cliches [I think it's aware of them and wisely avoids spending too much time on them; it's at its worst when doing things like the scene where the Bishop gives the King evidence that he's not a doctor, and at its best when playing off expectations, like having the Queen never warm to anybody and always be kind of bitchy in a queenly way]. What I'm saying is, it brings them together well; what is unpredictable about it is not the way the story develops, but the fact that they managed to make the climactic speech a genuinely cinematic moment full of tension. If it wins Best Picture, I'll start to accept it as "overrated", but as of now, it's a really solid British drama with a story which is strangely dramatic for how true it is. If 'The King's Speech' were as bad as 'Green Hornet', people would call it out on a lot more, but it's fairly obviously *not*. I don't think it's a sign of intellectual dishonesty that people forgive things more in movies they like or that work better that they would never forgive in worse movies. That's just how movies work, because we've all grown to realize that true perfection in movies is rare.

Spider-Man worked fine, but I'm not looking forward to the origin *again*. I think Iron Man only proves that Downey was great, not that it *needed* to be another origin, but it was fun enough.

comment #49

Terry McCarty says ...

Mark wrote:
In Waltz's defense, i don't think playing the villain in a Gondry flick at an outrageous quote is something we should judge too harshly.

He's just being seen for now as the new Alan Rickman.

comment #50

Terry McCarty says ...

Actually, I would have preferred a Gondry/Charlie Kaufman HONEY WEST w/Greta Gerwig.

comment #51

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comment #52

Mark says ...

Indie dramas can't rehabilitate Rogen. He's not a leading man. His most enjoyable performance was in short doces in Superbad. He joins Spacey and Jack Black as enjoyable supporting pieces that got ruined in the transition to lead.

comment #53

CitizenKaned4Life says ...

Good info on Dynamite. I wasn't actually trying to slag them off as some ghetto company; I just honestly don't know that much about them. They did a really nice job with the Smith Hornet, though; I'd have no reservations buying licensed property -- which usually tends to be a bit of a dicey proposition -- from them again.

Good point re: Leterrier Hulk. I didn't much like that movie on the whole, but -- like you say -- that had nothing to do with the concise, brisk way they handled the origin (because, let's face it, most of those prologues were just haphazardly dreamt up to justify the existence of a character's mutation, power, etc...they're not inherently very cinematic, or even engaging as a standalone yarn).

comment #54

CitizenKaned4Life says ...

I'd also probably have to respectfully disagree about Iron Man have a solid three-act structure. I actually thought the first act was AMAZING. The Afghanistan captivity, building the prototype suit when his captors thought he was building a reactor, blasting his way out, the crash in the desert -- all great, and stuff that most people generally hadn't seen onscreen in the superhero genre before.

But then he gets back to the States, and -- after a couple of admittedly amusing scenes by Downey -- the entire thing just felt like it went completely on auto-pilot.

There was a certain gravity to the early scenes that was pretty unique to the genre. You felt like nobody really cared who he was, or if he lived or died. It would have been a lot more interesting to me if the filmmakers could have tried to maintain that general tone throughout (with, okay, some nice moments of levity from RDJ here and there), and saved the all out schticky/jokey stuff for the second entry in the series, which was pure ridiculousness from the first frame, anyway.

comment #55

Kakihara says ...

Kane: I'd have liked Iron Man more if there was an actual need for that "bonus" ending. The second movie suffered from being too much like that scene[i.e. draggy and explanatory], and not enough like the original film[Energized and to-the-point].

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