Hulk Want Franchise Back!
I think we can all agree that the last go-round with The Incredible Hulk (or just Hulk; we could never get that straight) was less than successful. Ang Lee's 2003 film (review here) was a flop. Five years later, we get Hulk redux (review here), in which Edward Norton replaces Eric Bana as the scientist with anger management issues.
The June release put the fugitive green monster in direct competition with The Dark Knight (expected Dec. 9 on DVD) and Iron Man (already on DVD). The latter, for my money, was the most successful comic book movie of the summer. Knight felt constipated with angst and dread. Iron Man was light on its feet. But Hulk, dammit, crudely pummeled its way into out heart.
No thanks to Norton, mind you. The actor is hardly more fun than Bana. But this installment stomps less heavily than Ang Lee's freighted psychodrama. Now scientist Bruce Banner is hiding out in Rio, working in a bottling plant--yes, that means lots of broken glass during a fight scene--and trying to devise some sort of remedy to his green malady. (Back home in the states, Liv Tyler barely registers as his girlfriend-in-waiting.)
French director Louis Leterrier comes from the Transporter movies, and screenwriter Zak Penn from the X-Men franchise; so both have a somewhat campy, tongue-in-cheek appreciation of their steroid-infused hero. (He's juiced like Barry Bonds.) This isn't Tennessee Williams, in other words, but a comic book.
Banner tries to maintain his Zen, with a pulse watch to monitor his rising provocation to rage, until the bad guys (Tim Roth, William Hurt) push him over the edge. In his blood is something like the AIDS or 28 Days Later virus; only his contagion has marketable, military value. He's worth more sick than healthy.
Cameos from Marvel Comics' Stan Lee and TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno signal the movie's debt to the dime store racks. When his heart beats too fast, tipping him over into CGI Hulk-gasm, our hero is liberated from the bottling plant, girlfriend, or social responsibility. He just gets to smash stuff (including Roth's The Abomination, a kind of HGH weapon on two legs). Tossing manhole covers like frisbees and smashing bricks like balsa wood is great fun; you don't have to believe in the story to think that it would make a great Wii exercise module. ("Hulk say, 'Burn those potato chips off your ass!.'")
In the end, though there's a certain political component to the film (Al Qaeda on steroids!), you're left with something like Tom of Finland meets Tales From the Crypt. Muscled veiny monsters grapple half-naked in the streets; women are forgotten; then Iron Man's Tony Stark shows up to tease us with visions of next summer's superhero tango: all testosterone and no girls allowed.
The Incredible Hulk. On DVD Oct. 21. Universal Home Ent. $34.98.
2 comment(s)
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Cover Story: Critical Mass
Dallara says:
Hello,
I wanted to make before. 'm New here in the forum and I am Christine. I hope some things I can read and write well
Greeting Christine
Posted On: Saturday, Dec. 27 2008 @ 4:51PM
ecoreargE says:
Someone Leaked the movie from the studios and its great! The Sceanrio and the plot was extreamly well played out. i loved every minute of it!
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Posted On: Wednesday, Sep. 23 2009 @ 3:28PM