30 days into the new year and we already have a winner.
The winner of the Worst Movie award of 2011.
Seth Rogen's The Green Hornet is put simply, absolute trash. I had absolutely no expectations for this movie at all. My reluctance to watch at first stemmed from two reasons: Seth Rogen and Jay Chou. In the end, I was vindicated categorically for the former while pleasantly surprised and was coloured impressed by the latter. Only the most infinitesimal of reasons why I would pay for the movie tickets was because of Christoph 'The Inglorius Basterd' Waltz. Ever since he terrorised Brad Pitt and co in four different languages, I thought, this can't be that bad.
It wasn't bad. It was an abomination.
Dialogue and how its presented don't really bother me all that much, truth be told, when it comes to the movies I watch. If I'm going to watch a movie where the nature of its story and its dialogue are the key to the success of it, then, I would pay attention. After all, you don't watch Daniel Day-Lewis and expect him to spew obscenities in an American accent now, do you? I genuinely thought that the dialogue in this "reimagined" Green Hornet would be decent. Instead, all I hear from the increasingly, excruciatingly noxious Rogen are: "shit", "bitch", "Yo", and "SHIT!" The dialogue of his and one Evan Goldberg resembles that of chatters of 12-year-old boys who've discovered porn for the first time and are wondering why their little brothers down there are all a tingle. I cannot fathom the person's rationale, or rather, sanity, when giving the final green (pun intended tremendously) light to this atrocity. The script reeks of juvenile meanderings, where big booms and silly jokes try to mask its soulless existence. I wish I could describe further but doing so would make me more livid so I'll leave it with this:
Even my 6-year-old cousin speaks more sense than the entire movie.
The story is simple and follows a very linear path and I will try to summarise it as best as I can because I'm getting of weary remembering this anathema of the year. Rogen's character, Brit Reid, has just lost his father due to a fatal bee sting. He inherits the father's newspaper empire but as we are educated right at the beginning of the movie is that Brit is a curly-haired yob with a penchant for toy figurines. Brit is a toothless, smarmy, incorrigible, imbecile that spends his days bumming around his father's palace of a home so when he's entrusted with running the newspaper, he flees like the dingbat he is. After befriending, Kato, played by a rather good Jay Chou, they both bond together over seemingly nothing at all and start their misguided heroic adventures. Soon, they make a name for themselves and keep on their shenanigans with Brit instructing his newspaper team to run stories of the Green Hornet. We are are then introduced a dry-looking yet still ditzy Cameron Diaz whose character's name eludes me now so I'll just call her Chesire Cat who is hired as the personal assistant to Brit. Brit tells her to ramp up the notoriety of the Green Hornet to spur his obsessive compulsive behaviour of stroking his own balls. Of course, the self-proclaimed gangsta of all gangstas is none other than Waltz himself, playing Chudnofsky with the same look and expressions as his dastardly portrayal of Col. Hans Landa but none of the panache. This is probably due to the aforesaid twaddle of a script. In the end, there's the inevitable showdown where after nearly 2 hours is revealed and my hatred is complete. Any surprises? No. Was I willing to tear down the cinema with my bare hands? You bet.
Swimming in the sea of movideom dross, it was left to the Asian to somehow keep this fast sinking sampan afloat, Jay 'My smile and scowl are one' Chou, playing Kato, made famous by a certain Bruce Lee. Even with his haltering command of English, he at least saved some dignity to proceedings. He was actually likeable albeit with a scowl thicker than miso soup.
I want to believe that Rogen wanted to pay homage to this somewhat forgotten title but to do it in the manner he did, is not only besmirching its legacy, it leaves a terribly awful taste in the choices of Hollywood these days. I cannot in good faith recommend this if you view dialogue and script in slight regard.
Seth Rogen, grow up.
This is Chris, signing off.
P.S. Happy Chinese New Year to all. Have a great one.
2 comments:
I watched this when my parents came to visit, and I have to say that I wish I took your review more seriously.
While I was surprised by Jay Chou's performance -- is it just me or in some angles, he looked like John Cho? I thought he was gonna go all Harold Lee on Britt Reid's ass -- I was really disappointed that Seth Rogen cannot grow out of the roles that he tends to take. An incredibly old fashioned way of looking at it is the following: "Well, one has to be intelligent to be able to take on the role of a dumb person, right? You can't get a dumb person to play a smart role!". Um, but if one looks at the bigger picture, when an actor keeps on picking the same type of role over and over, they don't grow as an artist. For me, that's a sure road to career dumbness.
If Joseph Gordon-Levitt can grow as an actor by picking roles that are challenging in more ways than just levels of intelligence, then Seth Rogen should at least try.
Maria: Jay Chou gave an Oscar-winning performance compared to the childish gesticulations of Seth Rogen. Look at Will Ferrel, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, et al, and you can see that their "dumb" movies still are the biggest ticket sellers. Once you set a trend for yourself, it'll be damn near impossible to shake it off once you've discovered "real" acting.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Inception = Great.
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