The Green Hornet

 

Remember when super heroes were fun?

There is certainly a place for the grim, the gritty and the bleak. Indeed, it's a place that served the genre well in film. Until such fare as Blade and X-Men it was severely floundering. "Comic book" was not a term taken seriously, and indeed still carries connotations of childishness.

But it's been so successful that seriousness itself has become the paradigm, and within it I often feel that they have forgotten that a large part of the appeal is raw escapism. The simple fantasy of being special and powerful, and while it's perfectly legitimate to note that this might also prove isolating, it's rarer to see films delve into the joy that may come of it.

Onto this isolated precipice climbs The Green Hornet, propelled by music video auteur Michel Gondry, at the tiller of his first mainstream picture. His films thus far have been disappointing. Interesting certainly, but not what one might hope would spring forth from a man who is clearly a master of the form.

The Hornet and his man Kato aren't in this game for truth, justice or revenge. They go after criminals because they can and because it's a massive amount of fun. If justice is done and anyone learns anything along the way? This is a Brucey bonus. It's positively gleeful as they charge about with their high powered toys and live that crazy dream.

The films heart is the relationship between the man and his valet, which is a bizarre and endearing arrangement. Kato is a savant while Reid is entirely inept, yet has resources. A partnership of convenience ensues, brimming with selfishness and petty rivalry. I can see people might not take to it's awkward eccentricities, but I found the two of them very compelling companions. Mainly as it mostly revolves around the aforementioned fun and not some shared tragedy or emotional bond.

When they bring their brand of law to the streets it often involves Kato kicking some behind, and this kicking is wonderful stuff to behold. Gondry has managed to find something new to say in a field jam packed with stylised violence. His experience with visual flair is well in evidence as Kato bends the laws of reality to his whim and flings his foes every which way. Of special note, the fight between the two protagonists is genuinely hilarious.

And it does have it's comic moments. Not enough perhaps to call it outright comedy, but the premise itself was enough to keep me smiling throughout: They know nothing about crime. They're making it up as they go along and succeeding through luck and brutality. They end up asking a media student what The Hornet would do next and then drive off into the night to do just that. It's a surprisingly smart take on the role.

If the film has a flat note it's that it doesn't particularly sell it's villain. Jealous of the duo's press attention he ends up trying to sell himself as an equally outlandish figure, whom they never get time to explore. I felt they would have been better served by a straightforward criminal empire, to further accentuate the ridiculousness of their crusade. But he serves, if not excels, at placing a face upon the antagonist they oppose for reasons they're unclear about.