Seth Rogen seems to have actually completed The Green Hornet and put out a trailer for a January release. I caught it on You Tube and it leaves me with mixed feelings. If the trailer is any indication the film has a very mixed tone. Serious, a scene of Britt Reid being informed of his fathers death by gangsters. Action, Kato kicking ass, literally, and the Black Beauty firing a massive amount of bullets at a gangster’s car. Comedy, Reid gassing himself with his own gas gun and Kato blowing up a trafic camera after running a red light. It all has the feeling being more of a buddy action comedy than a serious superhero movie. I also have some concerns about Rogen’s performance. Part of the key to the character is that he is passing himself off as a mobster muscling in on the the established criminals’ territory. The previous Green Hornets; Al Hodge on the radio, Alan Jones and Warren Hull in the serials and Van Williams on TV; were all able to project an aura of true menace when in the guise of the Hornet and dealing with the bad guys. I get none of that from Rogen in the trailer. Rotten Tomatos put it best during the Anticipatron, It’s like Iron Man if he had been a stoner.
Archive for June, 2010
As with Mother’s Day, I decided I would highlight some suggestions for films that highlight the awesomesnees of fathers; in a cinematicly virile and manly way of course.
Commando (1985)- Ex-Commando Arnold Schwarzenneger shares a few bonding moments with his daughter, Alyssa Milano over breakfast, where he complains about her listening to Culture Club, then wrecks havock with half the west coast, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies and humoroous quips when a diposed dictator kidnaps his daughter in an attempt to force Arnold to get him reinstate to power.
Hook (1991)- Business man Robin Williams neglects his family until his children are kidnapped by Captain Hook and taken to Neverland where his repressed memories of being Peter Pan resurface and must stop Hook’s ultimate revenge of stealing his son’s love.
Ransom (1996)- Millionaire Mel Gibson turns the tables on his son’s kidnappers when instead of paying the asked for ransom, he goes on TV and offers it as a reward for their deaths.
In the Electric Mist (2009)- Tommy Lee Jones plays James Lee Burke’s bayou detective Dave Robichauex investigates a series of ritualistic killings that have ties to John Goodman an old child hood friend turned mobster, turned film mogul. When his adopted daughter is grabbed by the assassin, a crazed sex killer, Jones grabs a shotgun and gives the mob a lesson in backwoods justice.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)- Harrison Ford’s iconic character returns to save his old mentor and the only woman he everloved from a bunch of Commies after an alien artifact in the South American jungle, only to discover he’s actually been a deadbeat dad when it turns out the teenager sidekick with him turns out to be his son and decides to do the right thing by him and marry the mother afterthey defeat the Commies and the aliens.
The Mummy Returns (2001)- Forget about saving the world from certain doom when the Arnold Voosloo is resurrected so he can unearth the Scorpion King and reign over the Earth, all Brendon Fraser cares about is that they have taken his son who has the map to the tomb and will die unless he can get him to the right temple before sundown in three days.
Batman Forever (1995)- Another great ode to adoptive fathers. Val Kilmer’s Batman takes Chris O’Donnell under his wing when Tommy Lee Jones kills the teenager’s parents, and teaches him that revenge doesn’t have to include murder, though it can contain a great number of martial art beat downs.
Taken (2008) Ex-super spy Liam Neeson heads to Europe and wipes out half the Paris mob when his daughter is kidnapped by sex slave traders while on vacation.
Road to Perdition (2002)- 1930’s mob enforcer Tom Hanks bonds with his son while on the run from his former mob boss, when the boss’s son orders the death of Hanks’ entire family for his son’s knowledge of a murder the boss’s son committed. Knowing they can’t run forever, Hanks decides to wipe out his former employer’s entire orginzation to give his own son a chance at a life.
Tightrope (1984)- Lonely divorced cop Clint Eastwood has developed a sex addiction to prostitutes, is tracking a serial killer who targets the very same prostitutes Eastwood visits which makes him think he may be the actual killer, all the while fighting with his ex-wife to keep custody of his two daughters and their five dogs.
