It's ironic somehow that a director as distinctive and quirky as Michel Gondry is about to have his biggest success with the film that bears the least signs of his distinct touch. It's not that I begrudge him the success -- The Green Hornet, though flawed, is as entertaining a piece of popcorn cinema as we're likely to get until the summer silly season starts -- it just leaves me a little glum that a talent as large as Gondry's is going to be judged based on a last minute for-hire job on which he had relatively little input rather than one of his much superior, but far less seen, more personal works.

You'll note that all of this is based on the assumption of widespread success. That's because I believe it will find just that. The film delivers what it promises and does so with just enough style and splash to make it sell to a wide audience. Just don't bother ponying up the extra bucks for the 3D version when you go to see it at the theatre -- the post-production 3D is kind of crappy.

Here's the story for those unfamiliar. Seth Rogen is Britt Reid, the playboy heir to a media empire which he inherits after the unexpected death of his stern and disapproving father. Inherited along with the newspaper is Kato, well played by Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou, the technical genius and martial arts expert who will become the enabler for Britt's grand scheme.

Well, scheme may be too strong a word as it would imply that Britt had actually planned any of this out. It's more of a lark, really. A big, expensive, potentially fatal lark. Britt and Kato will become superheroes. But they'll do it with a difference. The bad guys spot normal heroes coming from a mile away because they are so obviously good. So they will appear to be villains instead so that they can get close enough to their prey to strike.

As for the prey, that'd be Inglourious Basterds star Christoph Waltz, who shows a surprising gift for comedy as the understated and insecure -- but also deadly -- leader of the crime syndicate that controls LA.

What this Hornet does best is the stuff that flits about the edges, the side characters and diversions. James Franco has a hysterical cameo to kick things off, Cameron Diaz is her typically funny self and Kato's little gadgets and quirks are all well thought out. There's a lot of detail and craft in the picture and that really helps to hold the attention.

What is does well, if not exceptionally, are the action sequences and set pieces which are well thought out, varied and executed well. There are also more of them than you might expect of a comic super hero film.

What it doesn't do that well is two things. As mentioned, the 3D is obviously a post-conversion job executed on a film that was not even remotely planned out like a 3D film. All the rules about how you're supposed to shoot 3D to maintain line of sight and depth of field to play nice with your audience's eyes and not give them headaches are broken here. Moving vehicles are shot on handheld, moving cameras, causing a wobbly and shifting plane of vision that makes it very difficult to focus while one major sequence employs multiple split screens each of which has a different depth of vision, thereby forcing the eye to refocus every time you look at a different part of the screen. Bad idea. Plus, some of the explosion and fire effects just plain look bad as they pop onto new levels.

Bad thing number one is easily avoided, however, by simply not seeing the 3D version of the film.  Catch it in 2D and all that stuff goes away. What doesn't go away, however, is Seth Rogen.

Now, I don't want to be too hard on the guy who was the real driving force behind the film and got what is really a pretty entertaining picture made. But the reality is that Rogen was miscast right from the beginning and is simply in the wrong movie. There are a few ways that you can nitpick at his performance but the simplest is to simply say that Rogen simply does not understand the difference between playboy and fratboy. He plays the latter when it should be the former and the result is a Reid who is just enormously immature and impossible to take seriously on any level. That's part of the point of the comedy, of course -- that it's Kato who's really the competent crime fighter and not The Green Hornet, but he pushes that point way too far and portrays Reid as essentially a stoner simpleton and that robs the film of what should have been its big moment of triumph because you just never believe or care about it enough.

That said, however, Rogen's not so bad that he blows the whole thing up and it remains a fun little diversion. The rumour is floating that a sequel has already been greenlit, which would not surprise me at all if true. With a bit of tightening and a slight tweak of the character this could prove to be a very fun ongoing franchise.