The Green Hornet

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Jordan

I really enjoyed this, I barley have any knowledge on the comic and show it's based on but the film was a lot of fun. Seth Rogan as a hero, it's pretty much what you would think it is. Everyone, even the villains sometimes are just hilariously incompetent.

I think the villain as portrayed by Christoph Waltz, might have been my favourite character. He's an insecure guy and it's a joy to watch him go through his mid-life bad guy crisis when the Hornet comes along and upstages him. He is the funniest serious villain I can think of.

It wouldn't be a Michel Gondry film if there wasn't some mind blowing visual concepts on display and this film has its fair share. Some you can see in the trailer, like the multiplying layers of cars that gives Kato extra momentum in his run up, or the amazing way the camera moves in a constant motion while Kato moves faster and the bad guys go in slow motion. It's kind of a nightmare to think of how they must have done that, but it is an awesome effect that really shows Kato's super speed. But the coolest thing was a shot that, without cutting divides into split screen and then each half moves in different directions and then divides again, until there are about 12 screens happening at once. It's really hard to describe the effect and also impossible to think of how they managed to physically executed the shot which appears to be in real time and without the camera ever seeming to cut. Some fx trickery in there somewhere, I'll have to see this again.

There's also a expositional/dream sequence that is just bizarre and hilarious.

The action is fine. Mainly car chase stuff and the odd Kato fight. What really sells the movie though is Seth Rogan and Jay Chou as his straight man. The two are great together and I quite like Seth Rogan's sense of humor so I had a great time. Cameron Diaz is in the film somewhere I think but who really noticed? Not me.

Now I looked everywhere for a 2d screening, but there were none on at any appropriate time and they were all at cinemas miles away. I had hoped to see the 2d version first and then watch the 3d to see how they handled the post conversion. I've said before I'm not a fan of post conversion but I was intrigued to see how someone like Gondry would handle it. It's certainly far better the others I've seen and Gondry uses the 3d in some cool ways, especially with match transitions where the 3d depth also matches and the aforementioned multiplying layers of depth. But the conversion still has problems, especially with plants, if you look at the trees they usually appear to be flat or have the background pushed out in strange ways between branches. It's filled with odd things like that.

I don't know if that's something anyone else but me notices. All in all it wasn't too distracting, the film itself was good enough for it not to bother me that much. However you see it you should have a good time.