The Green Hornet Trailer: On Second Thought, Maybe This Isn't So Bad?

Despite a litany of bad buzz, there were always two reasons to remain hopeful about The Green Hornet: Seth Rogen is -- for all intents and purposes -- very funny, and Michel Gondry is a genius. Like a legitimate genius. And so the preconceived notions that The Green Hornet has to be terrible -- which in large part derived from nothing more than the change of a date on the calendar -- get left behind within 30 seconds of watching the new trailer. Remember who you're dealing with here!

Consider The Green Hornet to be James Bond by way of Billy Madison. Rich playboy Britt Reid (Rogen) is content to party and live off the vast income of his media mogul father (Tom Wilkinson) until that all changes when -- first act spoiler alert! -- his pop is mysteriously killed. Left with the company, a bunch of cool gadgets and a trusty sidekick named Kato (Jay Chou, exhibiting a natural chemistry with Rogen), Reid realizes his father was busy working on some non-media stuff -- vigilantism! -- and takes up his legacy. Cue car chases, explosions and Christoph Waltz as the heavy.

I've seen other bloggers -- you know who you are -- and fanboy commenters rip this trailer for being "generic," as if any superhero movie this side of The Dark Knight isn't. You know what will look exactly like The Green Hornet? The Spider-Man reboot. Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class. Thor. Captain America. And bear in mind, even the almighty Christopher Nolan succumbed to these same beats in Batman Begins. It's called an "origin story" for a reason. That this particular one comes from Gondry -- with a script from Rogen and Evan Goldberg -- seems reason enough to be excited, January release date or not. Think about it: Doesn't The Green Hornet look more interesting than 90 percent of the releases coming the rest of this summer?

VERDICT: Sold.

[Trailer via Yahoo! Movies]