When it comes to superhero movies, the MCU and DCEU are at the top of the pile. After that comes stuff like Fox’s X-Men films, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy and so on. Then you have the largely forgotten curiosities. These are superhero adventures that don’t draw from DC or Marvel and generally don’t do as well at the box office. And right now, for some weird reason, one of them’s cleaning up on Netflix. I’m talking about 2011’s The Green Hornet.
Helmed by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry and based on the 1960s TV show, the film stars Seth Rogen as the titular hero and Jay Chou as his sidekick Kato. Though the movie has a decent amount of visual panache and some really cool frame-in-frame editing, it feels confused and never settles on a tone. Critics deemed it ‘Rotten,’ with 44% on the Tomatometer and it was a big financial disappointment for Universal. But it’s currently sitting at fifth on the Netflix Top 10 movies list.
So, why is it suddenly picking up viewers on the platform? Well, aside from it just being added this weekend, I have no idea whatsoever. Perhaps a quirk of the algorithm is throwing it into people’s suggestions list and it’s arousing curiosity? We may never know.
This attention couldn’t come at a better time for Universal, though. They’re currently working on a reboot of the property, presumably hoping to do better the second time around. Right now, very little’s known about the project, but I’d bet it’ll be more of a traditional action romp than the surreal, jokey adventure that Gondry and Rogen turned out.
Anyone going into it for the first time though should know that The Green Hornet is definitely not your typical superhero movie, but there’s enough coolness in it to keep your attention and it’s well worth a watch. And besides, let’s face it, we’re nearly a month into lockdown, so what else do you have to do?
