“The Green Hornet” is best in the scenes between Rogen and Chou. The two have a chemistry that fuels a natural back and forth, which turns to chippy bickering as the pressure of secret identities and vigilantism creates a rift in their friendship. It’s good that these interactions work, because that’s where the majority of the film is spent. Again, this is very much in line with everything that Seth Rogen is identified with, so if you’re not a fan. . . But if you can get past that and stomach Rogen for a while it’s worth it since almost all of his scenes are with Kato, and Chou’s Kato is the best character in the entire movie. Kato is a welcome surprise, with a understated smart-ass aspect to his personality that could almost be mistaken for innocence or naïveté if not for the mischievous glint in his eye.
The other place where “The Green Hornet” succeeds pretty well is in the action. In the TV show Bruce Lee, who is of course the greatest on screen martial artist of all time, played Kato. Those are big shoes to fill, and while he is no Bruce Lee, Chou is a passable badass. Once you get into the heart of the film, after all the building blocks are in place and the exposition is taken care of, which happens with merciful quickness, there are car chases and fist fights galore. And thankfully where these clashes are concerned, Gondry wisely places Chou front and center, leaving Rogen to skulk on the periphery.
While the action and momentum of the plot are enough to propel you past the smaller hiccups and potholes in the story, there are a number of places where the pace of “The Green Hornet” drags. The primary culprit is the subplot dealing with Britt’s secretary Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), an awkward attempt to have some semblance of a love interest. The character is a completely unnecessary plot complication, totally uninteresting, and only serves to drive a wedge between Britt and Kato, and to introduce a clumsy theme about responsibility and integrity in media. It doesn’t fit with the rest of the movie, and is never developed any further than to say there should be more ideals and responsibility in journalism.
