On the Couch

Peter Madden reviews The Green Hornet and The Way Back.

It’s when the first fight breaks out in the Green Hornet that you realise something has gone vaguely wrong.
The original Green Hornet TV show, which itself came from a radio serial, catapulted Bruce Lee to fame in America as the Hornet’s side-kick Kato (in Hong Kong, Lee’s birthplace, it rose to later popularity when repackaged as The Kato Show).
With that in mind you would think that, at the very least, Michel Gondry’s version of the story – basically a rich vigilante with an ass-kicking side-kick pretends to be a bad guy to fight crime – would honour its roots and make with the mind-blowing when it comes to the chop-sockey.
Sadly no.
While Jay Chou, the Taiwanese actor taking up Kato’s cap and eyemask, is more than up to the athletic requirements of the job, Gondry errs to the side of the silly (I know, silly, in a comic book movie!) for the action sequences and it just makes things that little bit too stupid to enjoy.
Rogan is Brett Reid, wastrel, loafer and heir to his father’s media empire. After daddy dearest kicks off Brett gets the keys to the kingdom but decides that after years of living la vida Paris Hilton, he should instead invest his time in fighting crime. He employs the seemingly endless talents of his father’s former mechanic and coffeemaker, Kato (Jay Chou) to do just that and the two are soon public enemies number one for both law-abiding and criminal classes.
Kudos to Gondry, however, for getting through the origin part of the story so quickly. All the main players are introduced in short order and the lads get their secret identities and crime-fighting gadgetry in order in double quick time.
Sadly, once they’re on track, their adventures aren’t really all that interesting. rogan does his loveable buffoon with a life-lesson to learn schtick. As an aside, what the hell has happened to Seth Rogan? Has he caught whatever it is that stole Steve Martin from us right in his prime? Nothing seems to be different about the cuddly slacker – looks the same, sounds the same – but he’s gone from being the go-to guy for dopey but hilarious antics to the guy whose dopey antics are slightly annoying.
As LA’s criminal overlord Chudnofsky, Christoph Waltz is his usual charismatic self but has very little to work with as the movie’s main bad guy. He’s neither menacing nor charming enough to make him a memorable villain but, then again, the Hornet isn’t a very memorable hero.
Cameron Diaz also makes an appearance as a secretary schooled in criminology who does little but give the boys a pretty face to fight over. A waste given Diaz is a quality comedy actress whose talents match up well with the film’s goofy tone.
Despite the whole thing being mildly disappointing there are flashes of brilliance both in the slapstick humour and the banter between Rogan and Chou. The pair are well-matched and likable and, in their better moments, you get an inkling of what could have been. It could have been very cool and very funny. Instead it’s just a bit silly and boring.
Peter Weir’s The Way Back is exactly the sort of film you should watch on a Sunday afternoon or, if the weather lets you down, a Bank Holiday Monday.
Two hours of good acting, interesting story and scenes of mild peril, it is inspired by the book The Long Walk by Sławomir Rawicz.
A Polish POW sent to the gulag in Siberia during the Second World War, Rawicz claimed to have escaped with a small group of men and managed to trek the 4,000 miles or so to India in a bid to escape Communism.
While some questions have been raised over the truth of his tale, it’s a ripping yarn and provides the model for Weir’s flick about POW Janusz (Jim Sturgess) who leads a ragtag group from their icy prison under the cover of a snow storm and guides them through some extraordinary extremes of weather and terrain so he can be reuinted with his wife.
Amongst his companions are a mysterious and cranky American (Ed Harris) and a knife-wielding criminal (Colin Farrell). Along the way, the party picks up a runaway teen played by Saoirse Ronan.
Imagine National Geographic made a less magical but just as interesting version of Lord of the Rings and you’re halfway there.