When I saw the trailers for this film, I was certain that I'd go to watch it and then hate it. The Green Hornet as I understood him (which is to say, not in the slightest) was an action hero vigilante type person who would be extremely miscast with Seth Rogen in the role, who's work I had never indulged in, but I could make a guess for him being a comedy actor. Ok, maybe it's not the most informed opinion since I was familiar with neither the work nor the title actor, but it was a strong first impression nonetheless.
For those unfamiliar, the premise of The Green Hornet is thus, Britt Reid, son of some rich dude who owns a newspaper who gets murdered, decides to become a vigilante to avenge the death of his father. Or so the trailers would have us believe, the real reason is because they initially just felt like it, and decided it was fun, don't all great superhero films start that way?
The story is a tad different from the normal superhero story, the heroes have no powers and only one of them has formal training, they don't feel led by responsibility, neither of them get the girl, and they cause the deaths of more innocent people in the film than in The Terminator, and as such, makes much more sense to be comedic. It plays with several different tropes of superhero films, and plays others straight, which can be a tricky combo. But this film manages to pull it off.
For example, the main character of Britt Reid is rude, lazy, rather cowardly, and uncaring, he goes into vigilantism for all the wrong reasons, only manages to survive through sheer luck and relying on other people. Only at the three quarter point of the film does he notice how many deaths of potential innocents he causes, and only then does he appear to care about it. Naturally this is all played for laughs, slipping his unlikableness behind lots of jokes, I don't think it would have worked any other way myself without making you hate the character utterly.
The main focus in the film, besides incredible mass murder, is the relationship between Britt and his 'sidekick' (such as he can be called) Kato. Long story short, they meet up, become best friends, break up and make up. Apart from when they randomly have a fight over the love interest character who despises both of them, it's pretty entertaining stuff, if only because you're waiting for them to just start kissing each other rather than the love interest. Neither of which ever happens.
The film has some pretty good jokes, and there were several points where I burst out laughing unexpectedly, nothing much to say there, beyond that it certainly made me chuckle.
Overall, the film was quite good, got laughs out of me, I awed at several of the fight (read: Kato beating up loads of clueless dudes) scenes, and the characters were entertaining to watch. I'd recommend it to the average action/superhero movie fan for a nice break from the norm.
