The Green Hornet

Sure, the 2011 version of The Green Hornet is about fighting evil, walking away from explosions, and having cool one-liners, but the real drama is the conflict going on between Seth Rogen’s playboy hero and Jay Chou’s deadly serious sidekick Kato. Any bad guys that get taken down aren’t so much defeated as they’re ground up between this pair’s egos. These heroes are real, but there’s still some fantasy going on here. Chou channels a bit of Bruce Lee (who starred in the ’60s TV show), and Rogen channels Rogen. The movie is also funny. Very funny at times. Underneath all that, The Green Hornet is just a simple “fill these shoes, son” type of story — a coming-of-age-20-years-late thing. And we love it for being so simple and so fun, and without pretending otherwise.