ENTERTAINING IDIOCY

The Green Hornet was a solid time-waster. It was cool to see what director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine, The Science of Sleep) did with a big-budget action flick -- lots of neat tricks, scene transitions, editing ticks, jazzy beats -- but I hope he gets back to more personal filmmaking soon.  The 3-D effects were well done for the most part and I never once felt that the movie looked too dark or retrofitted --everything felt visually seamless. Seth Rogen's character was interestingly unlikable but in a good way; he kept making it so easy for you NOT to like him but then he'd drop a great one-liner (there's lots of great dialogue bits) and I'd find myself laughing.  This is NOT your typical superhero movie, and while it's nowhere near as transgressive or genre-busting like Pete Berg's Hancock, it gets points for not doing some of the usual-usual that we've come to expect out of the superhero genre.  It's very jokey one minute, very violent the next, which is similar to Rogen's script for Pineapple Express, a movie that has this one beat by a country mile.  The Green Hornet is nothing great by any means but it entertained me and did the trick for a matinee.