The Incredible Hulk :: Wessex Scene Online

The Incredible Hulk

You didn't like me when i was Ang Lee

3rd November 2008
Will Roszczyk

About this film

Title	The Incredible Hulk
Director	Louis Leterrier
Release Date	13 June 2008
Certificate
Genres	Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Our Rating	3.0/5.0

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The Incredible Hulk Trailer

Ed Norton adds his own brand of green as the hulk returns to the screen.

After watching Ang Lee’s “Hulk” in the cinema, I, like most people, was a bit astounded to see that the Hulk, of all superheroes, had been subjected to some crazy, art-house treatment onscreen, and it looked like there wouldn’t be a place for the misunderstood green giant. However, “The Incredible Hulk”, aside from restoring the adjective, is a film that shows what the Hulk does best, and shows it well – he even says HULK SMASH!

On the run from the U.S. military, Bruce Banner (Norton) hides in Rio de Janeiro, trying his best to find a cure for the horrific alter ego. He stays away to protect his former love Betty (Tyler), but her father, General Ross (Hurt) sees Banner as U.S. property, and, with the help of British Special Forces soldier Emil Blonsky (Roth), who pumps himself with an experimental super-soldier formula (think Captain America), they try to take the troubled scientist back to the U.S., with typically bombastic results along the way...

Hiring Ed Norton was a great move for Marvel, and it pays off (and taking into account casting choices made in “The Dark Knight” and “Iron Man” this summer, sticking with the majority view). Norton gives Bruce Banner a sense of anguish as he slowly realises that neither he nor the world at large can handle his alter ego, and that those he loves will always suffer the consequences. Casting Norton after casting Robert Downey Jr. in “Iron Man”, Marvel were always likely to be seen to be making a gamble, but it wins out for them here as it did with Downey, and Norton could lead the way for more ‘serious’ actor types to take superhero films as possible roles.

Liv Tyler, for how little she appears here, does well. Many of the decisions her character makes are ridiculous (if going on the run with an angry green giant was ever anywhere near a good idea) but she manages to sell them quite well. Roth as the renegade soldier Emil Blonsky menaces the film, reminding me of the actor’s great turn in “Reservoir Dogs”, and his malevolent portrayal of the monstrous, cocky character should be reason enough for other directors to take note and cast him in more movies. William Hurt is Colonel Ross, the man trying to take the Hulk back for the U.S. Government, and he does well enough in what is pretty much an anonymous ‘bad-guy’ role. There are also cameo turns from Downey Jr. (in a nice little connecting scene between the two Marvel films) and Tim Blake Nelson as a wacked-out scientist who assists Banner in searching for a cure (and has an interesting event occur that presents him as a possible enemy in a later movie).

For Louis Leterrier’s first big-budget film after the “Transporter” films, “Incredible Hulk” feels very quick and to-the-point, and that does drag it down somewhat (more characterisation would have benefited characters at key points, and some scenes appear cut). However, notwithstanding this, Leterrier appears to be a brilliant action director, and I’m interested to see what he has to give in future. The Hulk beats the stuffing out of so many soldiers you lose count, and graphically-speaking, he doesn’t look as stupid as he actually could have, but the final battle between him and a grotesquely-mutated Blonsky becomes cartoony at some points. The theme of isolation and the Hulk as an illness to Banner give Norton many whiny, pathetic lines though(and having helped write the script, it explains why he reads them so seriously) but there’s some humour spread through to balance them out, particularly early on in a confrontation where ‘angry’ becomes ‘hungry’, to the total bemusement of the aggressors.

What gives this film its quality is that the mistakes made in Ang Lee’s “Hulk” have been totally forgotten – the earlier film dismissed as an attempt, and this as a hybrid reboot/remake/sequel. The concision with which Leterrier recalls the back story (in the opening credits no less) means that the typical origin story is lost, giving more time for Hulk to ‘SMASH’ his way about. The movie’s weaknesses lie in the short running time and in the sometimes laughable dialogue, but as a second Marvel-produced movie after “Iron Man”, and as a precursor to the eventual “Avengers” movie (which would see Iron Man and the Hulk teaming up or fighting one another), “Incredible Hulk” nearly lives up .