A classic comic gets another shot at cinematic glory...

The words ‘tortured production’ and ‘Nicolas Cage with a Jamaican accent’ wouldn’t normally be associated with an enjoyable action comedy. Thinking about it, ‘Nicolas Cage with a Jamaican accent’ would generally suggest a film of Troll-esque awfulness. Thankfully, the decision to extract Caribbean Cage from the production in favour of a sharp-suited Christoph Waltz means The Green Hornet’s failings are nothing to do with casting.

Chinese pop star Jay Chou makes an impressive Western debut as reluctant sidekick Kato while Rogen’s to be commended for giving our hero Britt Reid a plausible dramatic arc.

Bizarrely, it’s the uneven script - a component that should have been polished and refined over the years of development - that makes this caped caper more of an X3 than a Spider-Man 2. The story itself is fine. Britt (Rogen) is coasting through a playboy lifestyle funded by the newspaper magnate father (Tom Wilkinson) who neglected him as a child only to be left the keys to the empire after his father’s untimely death.

Britt strikes up a friendship with his father’s former mechanic Kato (Chou) and the pair set about cleaning up the streets of LA with a plan to ‘pose as villains but act like heroes’. As they cruise the streets in the Kato-designed Black Beauty car and rely on the intelligence of Britt’s new secretary Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), the Green Hornet and Kato bicker over the dynamic of their partnership and plan to bring down crime lord Chudnofksy (Waltz).

So far, so simple. We’ve got a clearly defined villain, a leading man with daddy issues, breeding ground for hero-sidekick antagonism and a plot allowing for several thrilling set-pieces.

For the most part, The Green Hornet delivers on these promises. Michel Gondry might have seemed an odd choice to bring an American radio serial from the 30s to the big screen but his visual flair, aided by some well-placed 3D, gives the film a vivid identity. A clever ‘bullet time’-style effect is used for Kato’s lightning-quick reactions, and the French director’s enjoyment of the project is clear in a multi-car makeout scene in Britt’s partying days, or in the injection of his Hardest Button to Button multiplication trick to a roadside fight scene.

Rogen and Chou’s squabbles are also tremendous fun and build to a hilariously inept punch-up that looks a cert for MTV’s coveted Best Fight award, while Kato’s wonderful toys give the film featuring masked men a grounding in reality.

Even Diaz is perfectly adequate (though noticeably showing her age) as the storyline trots along through newspaper arguments, the destruction of a crack lab run by Edward Furlong and the botched introduction of the film’s secondary big bad.

There’s just always the hint of something missing, unfortunately. Rogen’s hero serves as the audience member revelling in how cool everything is, but too often it feels as if we’re being told, not shown. Waltz tries his best, but Chudnofsky is an isolated, unscary villain whose evil we never really see. And after the success of Kick-Ass, a visually-stimulating comic book film with humour and grit, The Green Hornet can’t help but underwhelm – it might have been an accident, but as Kato and Britt bounce along to Gangsta’s Paradise, you can’t shake the memory of Kick-Ass and Red Mist doing the very same thing to Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy.

That said, The Green Hornet remains likeable, despite failing to match up to recent highs in the genre. Its climax is overstuffed and its plot strands never fully align, but this action-comedy buzzes with invention and humour.

The Green Hornet opens in the UK on the 14th of January 2011

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