The Green Hornet Review

Michel Gondry is a director of handmade whimsy handed a studio action tentpole, and critics describe a mismatch neither side wins. Flashes of the invention survive, most obviously the split screen sequence tracking a rumor across the city, and Jay Chou's Kato is the only figure onscreen worth watching, competent and quietly funny while everyone around him shouts. The car is a genuinely good piece of design. Almost everything else draws fire. Rogen writes himself a protagonist who is loud, entitled and unpleasant for so long that the eventual turn lands on nobody, and the film mistakes obnoxiousness for comic energy.

Christoph Waltz is handed a villain built entirely on insecurity about being intimidating, a joke told once and then repeated for two hours. The action is muddy, the 3D conversion drew near universal complaints, and the plotting sags into scenes that exist only to fill space between stunts. Audiences were warmer than reviewers, which fits, because the film is watchable and empty. The consensus is that a strange director and a star vehicle canceled each other out and left nothing standing.