The Green Hornet
The radio-serial hero makes his feature-length film debut in 3-D.
Directed by Michel Gondry
(PG-13)
*
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Green Hornet “wants to be something other than a dumb big 3-D movie,” but that’s exactly what it is, said Dana Stevens in Slate.com. The hiring of French filmmaker Michel Gondry and schlubby comedian Seth Rogen to bring the masked vigilante to life once seemed like a sign that this franchise was going to be anything but ordinary. But Gondry’s talent for “visual whimsy” and Rogen’s knack for writing and delivering “amiable guy-on-guy repartee” barely register here. The “dull commercial imperatives” of the superhero genre overpower such gifts, said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. As a rich playboy who dons a superhero’s mask to fill his time, Rogen achieves a “loose, kinetic chemistry” with his “manservant” sidekick, played by Jay Chou. But the script Rogen co-wrote with Evan Goldberg simply feels “pointless,” except as “further proof” that popular culture needs a break from superheroes. Even the film’s best moments seem “more thrilling in concept than execution,” said Keith Phipps in the A.V. Club. The actual movie we get is instead “shapeless and rarely satisfying.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'Voters know Biden and Trump all too well'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Is the Gaza war tearing US university campuses apart?
Today's Big Question Protests at Columbia University, other institutions, pit free speech against student safety
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
DOJ settles with Nassar victims for $138M
Speed Read The settlement includes 139 sexual abuse victims of the former USA Gymnastics doctor
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published