What Do The Critics Say?

"Chou phonetically powers through in a breakout performance: he's cooler than cool;, even if he can't pronounce 'hubcap'. Rogen and Chou have breezy buddy-flick charm. Can a genius and an average Joe pair up and put egos aside to serve mindless adventure? Gondry and Rogen have. And their popcorn flick is pure, perfect entertainment.." Amy Nicholson INLAND EMPIRE WEEKLY "The fact remains "The Green Hornet"is an unusually laid-back, offbeat superhero movie, in the image of Seth Rogen. Impressed by the fight scenes. A satisfyingly rowdy and goofy action comedy." Kevin N Laforest MONTREAL FILM JOURNAL "It was nice watching a Comic Book movie where there wasn't much brooding or tales of woe involved." Michelle Alexandria ECLIPSE MAGAZINE "Chou steals the show, especially when he speeds into action in glorious Kato-Vision." Allan Hunter DAILY EXPRESS "Gondry is an incredible visual stylist and he's showing off in a way that fits perfectly with the loose style of the movie. “The Green Hornet” takes the well-worn conceit of the millionaire with toys who fights crime in new directions and doesn’t apologize for being goofy. The action scenes in “The Green Hornet” are deliriously fun and way over the top." Eric Melin ON CAMERA REVIEWS

"Cool visual effects, martial arts action, car chases, explosions, shootouts and lots of James Bond-style gadgets. This movie delivers about what you'd expect, since it is based on a comic book. The humor is hit and miss, but this movie is fun more often than not and never takes itself seriously." Robert Roten LARAMIE MOVIE SCOPE "Perhaps we should be grateful that The Green Hornet is a perfectly enjoyable Seth Rogen movie." Simon Foster SBS MOVIES "The Black Beauty is a thing of wonder to behold for James Bond fans and car enthusiasts alike. Fun, full of action and just serious enough to work without becoming ridiculous." Kevin A Ranson MOVIECRYPT "It’s not a superhero film. It's an exuberant anti-superhero film that exists with no agenda except to delight. A bit like a light-hearted variation of Kick-Ass. It’s very much a Michel Gondry film." Thomas Caldwell CINEMA AUTOPSY "The big, loud action movie is a producer's film, calculated to look like other action money-makers. Ordinarily, it would be derivative, lazy and conservative. That has been somewhat subverted by the involvement of Rogen and Goldberg, who are still young and willing to take risks. It is a patchy film, haltingly paced, but the visual invention is astonishing." Paul Byrnes SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

The Inside Story Born as a radio serial at penny-pinching Detroit radio station WXYZ in 1936, "The Green Hornet" has garnered many fans in all media: not only on radio, but in film serials, comic books and for one season in the 1960s, a television series that catapulted Bruce Lee to stardom in the U.S. Now, With a new 3D film, "The Green Hornet", directed by Michel Gondry, makes his feature film debut introducing the masked avenger to a new generation of fans. As the filmmakers shepherded the project, there were a number of directors who expressed interest in the project, but when the chance to work with someone like Gondry comes along, you jump at the chance. And they were thrilled that even with Gondry’s well-earned rep for mind-bending films, it was clear that the movie he wanted to make was the Gondry spin on the project Moritz, Rogen, and Goldberg had envisioned all along. "We couldn’t be more fortuitous to have someone with Michel’s creative ingenuity," says Producer Neil H Moritz ("I Am Legend"). "At the beginning, I was really excited about the possibility that Michel was interested: I’m a huge fan and we’ve been friends for many years; but this would be a tentpole action-comedy. Was that what he wanted to do? Was it too outside his wheelhouse? And Michel saw a way to take the framework of this big Hollywood movie and bring his original voice, look, and sound. So yes, it’s an event title, but it’s also a Michel Gondry movie." "I’ve had the opportunity to do a movie in this genre before, but they always had a slick attitude: the one guy saving the world; and I don’t identify with that guy. I like to have people portrayed on the screen that have flaws, a sense of humor, maybe a bit of a loser at times," 2005 Oscar® winning Gondry (Best Original Screenplay - "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") states. "That's what was appealing about this movie. There’s danger in having a 'shtick'. Of course, there are sequences that will have my specific signature, but no one wants to repeat their past work. I want to make movies that combine technical filmmaking with real acting. This is big action-comedy, and clearly there are a lot of effects, but because we captured so many of those effects in-camera. The actors could act and be funny, and the result is a great performance." "Britt Reid is famous for being the son of someone who did something great, but he’s just a dude who parties," says 2008 ("Superbad") and '09 (All Media) Canadian Comedy Award winner Seth Rogen, who, in the film, plays both Britt Reid and The Green Hornet. Rogen who co-wrote the screenplay with his partner, 2008 Canadian Comedy Award winner Evan Goldberg ("Superbad"), notes: "He’s never once done anything meaningful in his life. But when his father dies, he sees he has the opportunity to do something that gives his life purpose and direction: he decides he’s going to use his inheritance as a force for good." The Green Hornet is in 3D, a decision that fits perfectly into the story that Gondry is telling, including the way he filmed it. "Michel is a revolutionary," says Moritz, who produced on the upcoming "Fast Five"). "You know, he’s the guy who invented 'Matrix time'. He did it in a Smirnoff commercial years before they used the same technique in The Matrix. Michel uses every tool, every trick of the camera, CGI, everything, to tell the story. And 3D is just another innovative tool that allows filmmakers to tell their stories in a new way. So of course Michel was interested in releasing the movie in 3D, and using the depth and scope of the film in this dramatic new way." Grant Anderson and Rob Engle were the supervising stereographers charged with adapting Michel’s vision for 3D presentation. According to Engle ("Monster House"), the fact that much of the movie was shot in 2D and then enhanced with 3D allowed Gondry more control over the final image and as a result, truly allowed him to play with the 3D space in his unique Gondry way. "What conversion allows us to do is to manipulate the three-dimensional space in a way that you can’t do with traditional photography. Shooting in 3D, what you see is what you get. But the way we did it, it actually opens up the door to using 3D in a creative way and manipulating 3D in unexpected ways. The final decision to release "The Green Hornet" in 3D came shortly after the completion of principal photography. It gave Gondry the ability to design many of the effects sequences with 3D in mind. "Michel is a visionary," says Engle."He’s constantly coming up with unique and creative ways to use the film medium. I think 3D adds a new and exciting weapon to his filmmaking arsenal." "When I go to see a movie, I want to see something I’ve never seen before," Rogen notes, "and if there’s a dude who’s come up with a lot of stuff I’ve never seen before: it’s Gondry." Any major feature film requires a high level of collaboration to pull it off, but "The Green Hornet" is an especially good example. As four time Blockbuster Entertainment and 1996 ShoWest Award Female Star of Tomorrow Award winner Cameron Diaz explained: "It’s really a great partnership and a lot of fun working with them. You’ll be on set and Michel comes in and gives the direction. Then Seth and Evan hear that and talk to Michel about a new line of dialogue. All of a sudden there’s this synergistic thing that happens. The set is a blender, all these ingredients are being poured in, you push a button, and out comes the perfect piña colada." As for the screenwriters, Rogen says, "We had always been comic book fans, superhero fans. For a long time we had been trying to write a movie about a hero and his sidekick. But nothing was quite right for us until we looked at the Green Hornet. It was like this project was tailor made for what Evan and I wanted to do: we could explore the relationship between Britt and Kato around the framework of this kickass action-comedy. It was perfect. There’s a great love out there for the sidekick as well as the 'Green Hornet' himself." If Gondry brought his vision and Rogen and Golberg brought the comedy and story sensibilities, it was Moritz who brought a deep experience with action films. "Neal has an extremely detailed perception of what works and doesn’t work in terms of action on screen," Gondry ("Be Kind Rewind") notes. "He really has a sense for it, how to frame a shot, how many frames to cut in the editing room." Rounding out the crime-fighting trio is, of course, the Green Hornet’s car, 'Black Beauty'. "As far as I’m concerned, 'Black Beauty' is the real superhero of the movie," Moritz ("2 Fast 2 Furious") said. Finally, after much development with car manufacturers and designers, the filmmakers decided that only the Chrysler Imperial Crown (the same model used in the 1960 TV series) would do. "Every time we compared the new designs to the classic Chrysler, they never lived up. I think it was Michel who said, 'Why don’t we build off of the Imperial?' A light bulb went on," Moritz ("The Fast and the Furious") recalls. "We’re never going to come up with anything cooler than that." Now the team could set about casting the players who would bring their vision for "The Green Hornet" to life. "I couldn’t think of a better person to play the title role," says Moritz. "To believe that Britt Reid becomes The Green Hornet, you have to believe the character he is at the beginning, and no one could play that better than Seth." "The whole story of the movie is that Britt is an irresponsible idiot who’s trying to get his life together to do something worthwhile," says Rogen, who played Dale Denton in the action/comedy "Pineapple Express". "As an irresponsible idiot, I’m quite good." With the Green Hornet cast, the filmmakers turned to casting Kato. For this pivotal role, they turned to Asian pop star Jay Chou. "We truly did an around the world search for who could be Kato," Moritz notes. Chou is one of Asia’s biggest stars: the King of Asian Pop, according to Time Magazine. Trained in piano from the age of three, he would later take up the cello graduating from high school majoring in piano, He has sold over thirty two million albums and has had Asia’s top-selling album for ten years running. Some Americans may not know his name yet, but they will: to Asian-Americans, he is an enormous star, capable of selling out a one hundred thousand seat venue like the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. After an initial audition over Skype, the studio flew Chou in from Taiwan and were immediately struck. "There was something about the chemistry between Seth and Jay that reminded me of the classic buddy movie pairings," Moritz remembers. "He has a star quality when he’s on screen. Moritz says it makes you think, "I want to watch this guy." "It was immediately clear that he was super cool," Rogen adds. "He’s really charismatic, he’s handsome, he has that cool hair. He’d never take orders from a guy like Britt Reid." That made him perfect for the part. "The Green Hornet is the hero, but it’s Kato who does everything," Gondry notes. "That’s a great twist on the hero-sidekick thing; the sidekick is the real hero, but he gets no credit." Chou feels that the team is "balanced. They are from different backgrounds, but they are like brothers. Britt is the funny one, Kato is a little bit more serious." Of course, Chou was intrigued by playing a role that not only Bruce Lee made famous, but was the role that made Lee a star. "I’m sure it was difficult for him; the legacy and aura of Bruce Lee is gigantic," Gondroy says. "So his approach was not to do any imitation of Bruce Lee at all. It became pretty clear that he was very, very cool in a very different way. He had Kato’s confidence, every step of the way." Lenore Case (played by Wende Wagner who passed away at age fifty five on the 26th of February 1997) was another character that carried over into the film: in a slightly different incarnation. Cameron Diaz ("What Happens In Vegas") brought the updated character of Britt Reid’s secretary to life. "I was in New York and got a call that Seth Rogen and Michel Gondry were doing "The Green Hornet". Those two names separately were incredibly interesting to me. But hearing those names together? It made the project completely irresistible. When I thought of those two minds together, I didn't care what it was. I just had to be a part of it." In the 1930s, Lenore Case was a woman ahead of her times. In 2011, Lenore is a woman of her times. “She’s smarter than both Britt and Kato put together," Diaz jokes. To play the Green Hornet’s nemesis, Chudnofsky, the filmmakers brought in Oscar® winner Christoph Waltz, who had astonished everyone with his performance as Col. Hans Landa in "Inglourious Basterds". Tarantino's film was released the same week that "The Green Hornet" started production and the idea of getting Waltz brought a palpable excitement to the set. According to Waltz, from Chudnofsky’s point of view, Britt Reid’s plan of posing as criminals to get close to the real bad guys totally works. "He’s obsessed with the Green Hornet, because he sees the Green Hornet disturbing his business. Britt’s plan works perfectly." What's It All About?

Britt Reid, son and heir to Los Angeles' largest newspaper fortune, is a rich, spoiled playboy who has been happily maintaining a direction-less existence based on partying hard, drinking and bedding beautiful women. Until his father, Newpaper owner James Reid dies. It is then that Britt meets impressive and resourceful company employee, Kato. Britt quickly realizes that they have the resources to do something worthwhile with their lives and he can finally step out of James Reid's shadow. Kato builds the ultimate weapon, The Black Beauty, an indestructible car with every weapon imaginable and Britt decides that in order to become heroes, they must pose as villains. With the help of Britt's new secretary, Lenore, they discover that the chief criminal in the city is named Chudnofsky. Having united all the gangs under his power, Chudnofsky isn't impressed with the new team muscling in on his turf.

The Verdict "Shot in 2D, the 3D effects were added thanks to a decision made after the completion of principal photography. The production teams reasoning was that adding it later would give them more scope when it came to ceativity. Thankfully, unlike "Clash Of The Titans" (in which the 3D effects were abysmal), adding it afterwards worked out reasonably well. Except for some small blemishes, the 3D effects look pretty good: as audiences will discover. I'm sure "The Green Hornet" will revive many memories for those who were around when the original TV series screened. The original Kato was played by martial arts great, Bruce Lee. In the bigscreener, Kato is played by Jay Chou, who really does make the character his own. He's a lot less serious than Lee and with the addition of Kato-vision, far more spectacular during his fight scenes. Rogen is the perfect fit when it comes to the 'slacker comes good' role. In "Knocked Up", Rogen went from slacker to responsible parent. In "Pineapple Express", he went from a dope loving slacker to an accidental crime-buster. In "The Green Hornet", he makes a massive leap from slacker to crime fighter. The brain behind the crime-fighting duo's operation is Lenore, played by Cameron Diaz. Hired for her hot looks as a secretary, it's her 'smarts' that provide the answers Hornet and Kato need if they are to be successful. Waltz is effective as crime boss Chudnofsky while the 'Black Beauty' is sensational. 3 1/2 STARS." Who Is Playing Who?

Seth Rogen Jay Chou Cameron Diaz Edward James Olmos Tom Wilkinson Christoph Waltz Keith Adams Dennis Keiffer Travon Magee Dave Powledge Jerry Trimble David Harbour Jamie Harris Chad Coleman Edward Furlong Analeigh Tipton

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Britt Reid/The Green Hornet Kato Lenore Mike Axford James Reid Chudnofsky Chudnofsky's Gang Chudnofsky's Gang Chudnofsky's Gang Chudnofsky's Gang Chudnofsky's Gang Scanlon Popeye Chili Tupper Ana Lee

Directed by Michel Gondry Written by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg From the George W. Trendle radio series "The Green Hornet" Produced by Neal H. Moritz Original Music by James Newton Howard Cinematography by John Schwartzman Film Editing by Michael Tronick Casting by Francine Maisler Production Design by Owen Paterson Art Direction by Benjamin Edelberg/Greg Papalia/Chad S Frey Set Decoration by Ronald R Reiss Costume Design by Kym Barrett Run Time 119 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2011 - Sony Pictures - All Rights Reserved ©1999-2011 - The Movie Pages & Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved. Protected by Australian & International Copyright, Trademark Laws & Intellectual Property Rights.