January 17, 2011 -- This movie delivers about what you'd expect, since it is based on a comic book, it is not serious (unlike the last two Batman movies) and it stars Seth Rogen, a well-known comic actor. It has plenty of action, neat visual effects and first-rate 3D post-production rendering. The humor is hit and miss, but this movie is fun more often than not and never takes itself seriously.

Rogen (“Pineapple Express”) stars as Britt Reid, heir to his father's (Tom Wilkinson of “Michael Clayton”) publishing empire. He is a party animal with no interest in publishing a newspaper, but when he discovers one of his employees is a martial arts expert and a genius at constructing weapons, he decides to become a superhero. His employee, Kato (Jay Chou) is the real brains of the operation, but Britt is absurdly overconfident in himself. The two have a falling out, in part, over a woman, Britt's secretary Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz of “In Her Shoes”).

The Green Hornet and Kato act like criminals, but are really vigilantes. They begin taking apart the city's criminal infrastructure, a piece at a time. Soon, they get the attention of the city's crime boss, Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz) who is more concerned with style than profit. There are lots of fights and shootouts. People get killed. It is all played for laughs, even some of the deaths. This mixture of jokes and mayhem doesn't always work, but it works most of the time. One of the tricks used to amp the action is “Kato-vision” a visual device which gives the viewer a heads-up display of the upcoming action using slow and stop motion, horizontal rotations and highlights of weapons and threats. The 3D effects are excellent, even though the 3D was added in post production. Usually films that are shot in 3D look better than those which are converted to 3D after principle filming is completed, but this movie shows 3D done in post production can be very effective.

Christoph Waltz, who won an academy award last year for his performance in “Inglourious Basterds,” is about the only actor in the film who is very effective. Most of the characters are inconsistent, but then this film is mostly action and is broadly comic the rest of the time, so there isn't much subtlety required. It has what is expected of this kind of movie, cool visual effects, martial arts action, car chases, explosions, shootouts and lots of James Bond-style gadgets. It is a popcorn movie and it works on that level. This film rates a B.

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