Seth Rogen can't fill superhero's shoes in 'Green Hornet'

Seth Rogen can't fill superhero's shoes in 'Green Hornet'

Attention Iron Man. You can relax. Seth Rogen's bumbling avenger, the Green Hornet, doesn't come close to kicking your supersonic ass.

This overdone, underdeveloped mess from director Michel Gondry plays out with paint-by-numbers predictability. If you're looking for the tiniest of surprises from the filmmaker behind 2004's wonderful "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" you won't find it in "The Green Hornet."

Rogen, 28, plays Britt Reid, the spoiled, partying rich brat who dons the Hornet's mask. Thirty-one-year-old Taiwanese singer and actor Jay Chou ("Curse of the Golden Flower") is Kato, Britt's kung-fu crazy sidekick.

Together, these two self-appointed avengers decide to impersonate criminals, take down the city's crime lords and have some kicks along the way.

As superhero plans go, that's not a bad start. It's an intriguing concept: two goofballs pick up the superhero gauntlet and run with it.

Despite the few, mindless laughs this film delivers, "The Green Hornet" plays out like a frenzied day at the amusement park. Rogen (who co-wrote the screenplay) throws so much junk at the audience that all they want to do is rush for the Pepto-Bismol and stop feeling so green and queasy.

Waltz, Franco steal the show

"The Green Hornet" does come with plenty of slick cars, huge explosions and 3D tricks. That should fly well with 13-year-old boys and adults who haven't lost that youthful mindset.

For everyone else, "The Green Hornet" is just too hard to buy, especially with Rogen lumping his way from scene to scene sounding like a cross between Yogi Bear and the Cookie Monster.

It's really too bad because for few fleeting moments Gondry lets audiences dare hope that this first superhero movie of 2011 might be something memorable.

That feeing is inspired by Benjamin Chudnofsky ("Inglourious Basterds'" Oscar winner Christoph Waltz) and his punk rival, Danny "Crystal" Clear (James Franco).

The styleless, repellant Chudnofsky pays a call on this young buck trying to horn in on his turf.

"Look at you. You're old. You're not scary. Go retire," sneers the cocky drug dealer, his Prada- and Gucci-clad bodyguards standing behind him nodding in agreement.

For one thrilling instant Chudnofsky stares Danny down with a cold, blank gaze.

"I'm not scary?" he repeats, his eyes widening with disbelief.

Chudnofsky's guns come out blazing. He single-handedly slays Danny's posse. Puffed-up Danny is left crying like a baby, begging for mercy from this sociopathic killer.

Nothing else in "The Green Hornet" can trump that one single exchange or that energy that teeters on the edge of danger.

Newcomer Chou earns some good marks for his martial arts moves. But the actor's mumbling delivery is barely audible for most of this movie. That puts a major kibosh on the comic quips and buddy charm that "The Green Hornet" tries to deliver.

Cameron Diaz, who plays Britt's love interest Lenore Case, does little more than smile at the camera.

But the real blame for this fiasco falls on Rogen's shoulders.

Silly, rambling, goofball dialogue may play well in films like "Knocked Up" and "Superbad." But you need bigger, better guns than this when you're filling a superhero's shoes.