Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =20 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703583404576079380583445042= .ht ml?mod=3DWSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5 =20 The Green Hornet" may not be the end of movies as we know them, though = the people who made this atrocity were certainly in there trying. The question=97which rises to the level of an industrial mystery=97is, = trying to do what? Turn a dumb concept into a smart entertainment? Save a dim = production by pouring a fortune into stupid effects? (The budget was reportedly as = high as $130 million.) Kill the special-effects industry by doing a parody of = its excesses? The effect of those effects, and of the cheesy 3-D process = pasted on as an afterthought, is simply numbing. The film's only unqualified success is the end title sequence=97because it's genuinely stylish, = because it looks like it was shot in genuine 3-D and, most of all, because it's the end. Watch a scene from 'The Green Hornet' starring Seth Rogen and Cameron = Diaz. Courtesy Sony Pictures. The initial notion must have been a retro goof on the theme of the Green Hornet, a masked vigilante who, with his valet/sidekick Kato, first = entered American popular culture via a radio series in the 1930s. (The = semisuperhero is the alter ego of a newspaper publisher named Britt Reid.) And why = not? There's nothing sacred about the Hornet; indeed, there's never been = anything particularly distinctive about him, not on the radio or in any of his subsequent iterations in comic books and on TV. But the notion became a concept when Seth Rogen was hired to play the venerable crime = fighter=97not only to play him, but to write the script, with his longtime friend and collaborator Evan Goldberg, and to produce the film. (Michel Gondry was = the director.)=20 Mr. Rogen is a funny man=97he was terrific in "Knocked Up" and = "Superbad"=97with a distinctive voice that mingles chortle, yodel and gargle. None of his comic chops, however, could fill the void at the center of the character = he chose to inflict on himself. In keeping with the star's persona, Britt = Reid is now a doofus slacker, an amiable goon, a dim-bulb rich kid who = doesn't have a clue what to do with his inherited money or his shallow life. The brains of his operation belong to Kato, who is now less of a valet and = more of a mechanical and electronic genius and kung-fu virtuoso, plus a = casual sorcerer who can freeze time. (The movie freezes time too. At 119 = minutes it seems all but endless.) View Full Image FILM1 Columbia Pictures=20 Seth Rogen as Britt Reid, aka the Green Hornet, and Jay Chou as his = valet and sidekick, Kato, flanking Black Beauty in 'The Green Hornet.' FILM1 FILM1 Kato is played with deadpan nonchalance by the Taiwanese actor Jay Chou, = who is very entertaining at the outset. So is Christoph Waltz, who brings to = the role of the bad guy, Chudnofsky, the m=E9lange of sweet reason and = Stygian evil that he pioneered in "Inglourious Basterds." Yet the brains of the script operation are missing in action, or buried beneath it. Who cares about the bumbling hero, even when he starts to think that he knows what he's doing? Why care about a movie that disses its source material = without finding a good reason for having used it in the first place? It's pleasantly silly when, in the absence of any other motivation, = Britt says to Kato, "Let's do something crazy," and off they go to decapitate = a statue of Britt's late father. It's mildly amusing that Britt keeps referring, with winks and nods, to their implicitly gay relationship. = "Girls are such a drag, Kato. Thank God we have each other." They also have = Cameron Diaz to woo. She plays a journalism-school graduate=97let's hear it for serious practitioners of the profession=97who, although hired as a = secretary, has a vision of Britt's paper that he lacks. Still, pitifully little comes of the male rivalry, or her presence. In = this film, nothing comes to anything but the chaos of special effects: the = usual explosions and subwoofer blasts; general-issue fireballs; crazed car = chases; vehicles going airborne; bullets spewing from retractible machine guns mounted on the hood of Black Beauty, the Green Hornet's car, an old = Chrysler Imperial sedan gussied up with a new grille and so heavily loaded with assorted weapons that it could pass for a technical in Somalia. And oh, = the awful photography! Not only the pseudo 3-D, with its steep light loss through Polaroid glasses, but the grungy palette and bleached-out = colors. How could such a costly production look so crummy? Don't ask me. I = started off by saying it was mysterious. *** Special effects can be glorious (from "2001: A Space Odyssey" through = "Star Wars" to Pixar and "Avatar"), as well as good, bad or indifferent. What = they always prove to be is challenging=97otherwise they wouldn't be = special=97and draining. A reminder of how that challenge can affect another medium = turned up on the cover of this week's New Yorker magazine=97a cartoon showing a hospital ward full of Spider-Men in various states of orthopedic = extremis. The wryly humorous reference was to injuries recently sustained by performers in "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," the Broadway musical that = has embraced the allure of cinematic effects with unprecedented fervor, and = has spent unprecedented=97for a stage show=97amounts of money in the = process. As a professional moviegoer, I often feel I'm drowning in the FX tide; = just when I thought I'd recovered from "Tron: Legacy," along came "The Green Hornet." As a theatergoer, though, I enjoy adventurous stagecraft, so I couldn't resist the chance to see a Spidey matinee. (No glasses = required: every member of the cast appears in genuine 3-D.) Since this "Spider-Man" continues to play in previews, and since my colleague Terry Teachout, the Journal's theater critic, won't publish = his review until after the official opening, I'll confine myself to noting = what everyone who has followed the show's development already knows: the = aerial sequences are remarkable, even if Spidey and his nemesis, the Green = Goblin, fly around the theater on wires that the Spider-Man movies rendered invisible; and the mechanisms that produce various effects don't always work. One famously balky prop is a giant cocoon that entraps the = heroine, Mary Jane. It got stuck for a while during the performance I attended, = but it also bestowed the gift of a memorable image for FX-dependent movies, = not to mention live shows that seek to emulate them=97productions trapped in = a cocoon of technology. That entrapment is most obvious in a fiasco like "The Green Hornet," = which took refuge in technology as a means of averting box-office failure. = What can never be measured on screen, though, is the extent to which a film's special effects have drained the filmmakers' energy, distracting them = from fundamental concerns of storytelling, performance and pace. And that drainage comes with the FX territory. A stuck cocoon on stage is kids' = stuff compared to the things that can and do go wrong in the movie industry = with today's immensely complicated visual wizardry. This is not to say the movies should go back to painted scenery and = handmade models standing in for flying saucers. Who doesn't thrill to special = effects when they go well? Even when they go incomparably well, though, effects can't carry a film on their own. "Avatar" or the "Toy Story" trilogy = stand as the signal achievements they are because they use technology in the service of their narratives. It's also worth noting that digital manipulation ranged from invisible to nonexistent in two of last year's finest feature films, "The Social Network" and "The King's Speech." = Drama remains the most special effect. Write to Joe Morgenstern at joe.morgenstern@xxxxxxx=20 =20 =20 Your friend, =20 Larry =20 --------------------------------------------------------------- Please remember to trim your replies (including this sentence and everything below it) and adjust the subject line as necessary. To subscribe, unsubscribe or modify your email settings: //www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk OR To subscribe to the mailing list, send an email to pctechtalk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject. 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