[Movie Review] THE INCREDIBLE HULK
My feelings regarding Ang Lee’s “version” of The Hulk are publicly known within the talkback areas of this very site. What a lot of you don’t realise though is that, thanks to the really rather intelligent approach one of our regular visitors – Grundy – took in describing his “view” of the film in reply, I sought Lee’s version back out on DVD (it’s amazing how many ‘Under £2′ bargain bins you can find it in these days!) and re-watched it for the first time since its cinema release. I still think that Lee’s attempt is a hugely flawed movie (the entire third act is a total mess!) but Grundy’s right in a lot of what he says; there’s a huge amount of work to respect in the Eric Bana led version once you distance yourself from what a disappointment it is as the Hulk movie you hoped for. I’ve reappraised its worth, I will admit!
I went into Louis Leterrier’s new “reboot” of the Hulk franchise, The Incredible Hulk (putting itself up for the inevitable lazy critic catcalls of “far from incredible”), with a great deal of trepadation to say the least. As big a fan as I am of The Transporter movies as guilty pleasures, I didn’t really think that the “artistic director” of the first and the director of the second could be the man for the job. I also couldn’t shake the question of “Just how friggin’ hard is it to make a good Hulk movie, man?”
Well?
It’s with a great sense of relieve that I’m able to say that The Incredible Hulk is good. Not great. Not awesome. Not the “movie event of the summer”. Just good. For those that thought ‘fan nods’ and ‘action beats’ were cripplingly absent from Ang Lee’s early incarnation, then this is the movie for you. If your proverbial cock was proverbially rocked by all the angst, subtext and emotion in the early version then this movie is not going to appeal to you so much. For me personally, somewhere between Ang Lee’s almost anti-blockbuster version and Leterrier’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink set-piece heavy alternative, lies the PERFECT big screen version of The Hulk.
This time out we find scientist Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) living in shadows and scouring the planet for an antidote to his anger-induced ‘alter-ego’. But the warmongers who dream of abusing his powers, led by the obsessed General Ross (William Hurt) won’t leave Banner alone until they have “separated” him from his ‘dark side’ and channeled it into making a breed of “super soldiers”. At the same time, Banner can’t escape his need to be with the only woman he has ever loved, Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), the General’s daughter.
Upon returning to civilisation, Banner is ruthlessly pursued by one of General Ross’ best men, Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) who infects himself willingly with part of what pumps through Banner’s bloodstream so that he can “even out” the playing field between them. As a result he becomes The Abomination – a beast of pure adrenaline and aggression whose powers surpass even that of Banner’s alter-ego. Now a fight of epic proportions ensues as Banner must call upon the hero within himself to rescue New York City from total destruction at the hands of this new breed of enemy.
The opening act of this new version of the comic book property is absolute solid cinematic gold. It is pitch-perfect – Leterrier does a stunning job in orchestrating the opening titles, the performances, the locations, setting the story, getting all the “mainplayers” in place and using Craig Armstrong’s impressive musical score to great effect. Everything in this opening act was everything that I would dream of wanting to see in a Hulk movie.
The second act is where you’ll find yourself getting restless and it’s all for a perfectly explainable reason; Marvel – through the press and the ‘interweb’ – have denied the audience any chance to be enthralled or surprised with story developments or set pieces. They’ve all been pre-leaked and pre-discussed long before the film’s release so we’re all way too aware of who the villains of the piece are, who they will change in to, where they will decamp to for the inevitable property-destroying climax and you, the viewer, are left with being exposed to nothing you’re not fully aware of.
The action sequences are impressive, I’m not going to deny that – particularly the opening set piece in which Bruce Banner ”hulks” out in a South American bottle factory – but there’s nothing here you’ve not been fully exposed to already via the teaser trailer, the full trailer or the TV spots. Marvel dropped this ball earlier in the year when they did the same thing with Iron Man. To do it again is worrying. I don’t want to know every little beat of the movie I’m sparing the time to see (I was going to use the term “paying to see” but I get more free tickets thrown my way these days then you could possibly imagine!) and I think when it comes to cinematic versions of Iron Man II, Thor, The Avengers and/or Captain America, Marvel really need to start considering the ”less is more” approach to their marketing.
Leterrier’s direction is probably the most consistently solid thing within this movie. The script, by Zak Penn (and allegedly Mr Norton too – although he’s missing from the credits and the press kit… even under his “pseudo-name”) is a little ‘rubbery’ in some places. There’s jokes that don’t hit, a lightness of touch in certain scenes that doesn’t fit in within the context of what is going on and some dialogue that absolutely clangs off the screen and into your ear canal.
There’s always going to be those who watch this new version and get into a game of cross-comparisons between the cast of Ang Lee’s vision and this new cast. There’ll be those who wish they could play mix-and-match and put Eric Bana’s performance of Banner alongside Hurt’s portrayal of Ross and so on and so forth (I can’t imagine too many takers for wanting to see more of Josh Lucas though!) but that’s not a subject I particularly want to get in to.
In terms of acting in THIS film, Edward Norton (who is normally pretty damn reliable in everything he does) is a little uneven for my tastes; he fluctuates between being as perfect a representation of Bruce Banner as you could ask for one minute to being a little wooden and “off” the next. Liv Tyler, too, is really quite bland. I’ve always found her to be gorgeous to look at but not too interesting as an actress. Her performance here doesn’t change that. It’s William Hurt and Tim Roth who do wonders in The Incredible Hulk. Both have an absolute ball in their respective roles and are a great deal of fun to watch in every scene they’re in.
The film’s climax is a fun, high-octane experience and it works hard, under Leterrier’s eye, to not suffer from the Transformers syndrome of cluttering up the screen with fast-cuts and too much CGI so that you can’t focus on what is going on. The thing is though there’s only so much fun you can get from seeing two cartoon-esque CGI figures pummel the crap out of each other – even in a Hulk movie – and 26 minutes overcooks it, I’m afraid to say. Furthermore, I walked out of the cinema (following the much-hyped Tony Stark cameo and the LOOONG wait through the credits to see if there were anymore teases. There wasn’t so don’t waste your time!) and within half an hour I was struggling to remember just what the hell went on with The Hulk and The Abomination towards the latter end of the finale.
All in all, The Incredible Hulk is a good slice of pure escapist fun and Leterrier has stepped up to play in the “big boys sandpit”, so to speak, and – like Jon Favreau preceeding him – proven his worth. I don’t know any other film, asides from maybe Hancock, that has been getting such bad pre-release buzz and there’s almost something to be quite proud of in seeing this movie come out and clamp the mouths shut of its naysayers.
Far from perfect but far from a disaster either.
2 Responses to “[Movie Review] THE INCREDIBLE HULK”
Thanks for the shout out.
I liked this one a lot, it kept a good pace and didn’t any real fat to it (hell they cut 70 min. out of it).
If this does great and there is a sequel I can’t wait to see more of Tim Blake Nelson, he was a highlight in the film.
The grin on Nelson’s face as he started to turn into The Leader was fantastic! As long as they don’t make The Leader too funny he should be interesting.
As for the movie itself, I liked it. A lot. I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I enjoyed Ang Lee’s attempt but I think this is probably closer to what people were expecting in a Hulk movie, and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed.
And the Hulk himself was great! Yes, you were well aware that you were watching CGI but who cares? You knew that going in so did you really expect photorealism? But what we got was a “believable” giant green guy who is very primal in his actions but easy to empathise with.
Yeah, this is a great year for comic book geeks! And the best, surely, is still to come!
And I really do hope that all the groundwork that they are laying for the possible Avengers movie comes off. As long as they don’t drop the ball with Captain America, Thor or Ant-Man then the Avengers will have a very strong foundation to build upon. Fingers crossed.
Oh, and good review Gazz! Glad to read you’re finally coming around to Ang Lee’s Hulk, even if only a little.
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