"The Green Hornet" Review

If you are expecting Batman Begins, Spiderman or even Iron Man, don't.  If you are a fan of or do not mind Seth Rogen comedies, and are looking for a healthy dose of frivolous action, this film should do the trick.  I highly enjoyed this flick for what it is - a comedic slacker's guide to superhero-dom:

Step 1 - be filthy rich (here, having significant control of some form of the media is an added bonus);
Step 2 - have family dysfunction (in this case, daddy issues), then lose such parent, causing self-reflection and signaling a turn from previous hard-partying ways;
Step 3 - drink some crappy coffee and find a cappuccino-maker/innovative car mechanic/martial arts guru and recruit him as your "sidekick";
Step 4 - hire an eager-to-be-helpful assistant with criminology background to research your next moves as [fake-]criminal-trying-to-take-down-real-bad-guys;
Step 5 - have sidekick beat up criminals and build awesome superhero-mobiles decked out with spiffy gadgets to roam around town;
Step 6 - publicize own reputation through own newspaper;
Step 7 - persevere in final showdown with real baddies; and
Step 8 - come to terms with death of parent and looks to more superhero-ing ahead.

Overall, a silly fluffy ride.  Not a classic by any means, but many scenes were quite hilarious, and the action was surprisingly fresh.  The hornet-mobile, the Black Beauty, is amazing and almost always sometimes outshines the heroes, even if it still isn't quite the batmobile.  I'd probably get the DVD on sale at some point.

On a separate note, I have been a huge fan of Jay Chou's music (not so much the person) since his first album years ago, and though I have never been impressed with his acting (he was decent in Hornet though; I also don't think he's the best singer either, but a brilliant composer and musician nevertheless), it's nice to see him branch out to hollywood. Honestly, I like Seth Rogen, but I'm not sure I would have seen this movie in theaters if I was not curious about Jay Chou's performance.  It'll be interesting to see how the movie does in Asia, especially as it will be released over the Lunar New Year break (countering factor being bootlegs, of course).  A plug for some of my favorite JC songs from the past decade (a minuscule sampling - too many good ones to choose from):