That’s the Hulk, kids. Up on the screen, big as life. Starting at a slow jog across the desert, picking up speed until he’s moving like a locomotive, then one or two short jumps, faster and faster, and then he’s gone over the mountains in a two mile vault.
More below (and, in the interest of full disclosure, yes, I wrote the novelization, so if some of you think that connection would render me unable to make unbiased commentary, you’re free to do so.)
Is the CGI dodgy in some places? Yeah. So was Spider-Man. But forget all the paranoia from the half-finished Superbowl stuff that was put out there purely to let the public know this wasn’t going to be a guy in green body make-up and a fright wig. For the most part, the CGI is, well, incredible. Not only are the Hulk vs. army sequences great (the Hulk idly tapping his open palm with a busted rocket launcher after demolishing four tanks is laugh-out-loud hilarious) but what the commericals and previews can’t begin to convey is the miraculous close-up face work that is simply beyond belief. His range of expression is as unlimited as that possessed by any human face (David Duchovny and Al Gore notwithstanding.)
As for the rest of the film, Ang Lee tries something unprecedented. He endeavors to convey the story using comic book style storytelling, with panel inserts sliding in and out of the picture. It’s inventive, it’s dangerous, and I suspect individual viewers will either love it or hate it. There’s really no middle ground. If you hate it, it’s going to ruin the movie for you. If you love it, as I did, it’s going to be a kick to watch. Eric Bana’s great. Jennifer Connelly is great. Sam Elliot as a remarkably nuanced Thunderbolt is great. And Nick Nolte is astonishingly restrained as Banner pere, wisely reining in a part that could have left teethmarks all over the scenery (except for one ultra crazed outburst toward the end, and yet he makes even that work.)
The film takes a while to build. It’s slowed by techno-jargon about nanomed research and such, as if the filmmakers were concerned that modern audiences wouldn’t accept the notion that being hit by gamma rays would change Banner into the Hulk. That we know too much about radiation these days to think anything other than that it would kill him, and so “nanomeds” had to be added to the storyline to make it believable. Newsflash: Nothing makes transforming into the Hulk “believable.” You buy the premise, you buy the bit, simple as that. A lot of things could have been streamlined or cut altogether, including an entire flashback sequence of Betty and Bruce at a cabin. Then again, the original “Superman” film took a while to really get going (remember, Superman didn’t appear until an hour in, and then only for about ten seconds), so be prepared for a leisurely pace with an awareness that once the film gets going, it really moves. Only real problem not easily solved is the climax of the film, which is set at night *and* underwater so it’s tough to see, and is confusing from a storytelling aspect as well. Then again, that’s why God created novelizations.
PAD
• 
Y’know what the movie needed besides faster pacing? Some Humor!!!! Jesus crack a smile once in a while. No one laughed in the entire movie and that is not fun to watch.
But the story wasn’t a humorous one, and I think any attempt to inject superfluous humor into the movie would have ended in disaster.
Anthony, you’re right. This story is essentially a tragedy. A tragedy of ruined life, lost life, and then repentance for actions that weren’t the protagonist’s fault in the first place. The Greeks did worse with this much material. To want it to be the typical “summer rollercoaster” would have made it a different, and I think, lesser film. Besides, I don’t care what, there were times that I smiled just because the Hulk was there, doing things only the Hulk could do and it looked real.
However, what this movie was does not negate the next movie being a different type of film, an Alien/Aliens dichotomy if you will. If we are allowed a sequel, maybe one more in the vein of the television show, for instance. Or an all out Hulk-a-palooza whereby the Gamemaster transports Hulk to some space arena to play gladiator. Or Hulk actually faces the Thinker in a condensing of the old T. to A. stories. Anything can happen; if nothing else, that is the beauty of the Hulk, it can go anywhere.
Ever since seeing the film I have been pondering how the nanomeds affected the hulk and why they were incoproated into the story.
After reading Peters review above I thought I had found the answer, the whole “studio not thinking audiences would believe gamma radiation would turn a man in to the hulk without killing him” being very plausible baed on studio attitudes towards the intelligence of the audiences – die hard or not.
However, I found the definitive answer for those who are interested.
After reading an interview with Nick Nolte I discovered that the nanomeds were a representation of modern day technologies attempt for immunological advancement in the film. They weren`t placed there to add to the resonable persons validity of the origin of the hulk.
Bruce has altered genes which made him resilient to damage, disease, etc. However they are dormant, when he is hit by the nanaomeds and gamma radiation, many were under the perspective that the gamma rays activated the genes and the nanomeds, the nanomeds prevented the dose size of the gamma rays from killing him and the newly activated hulk genes stopped the nanaomeds from killing Bruce. Nolte clears up this overly complicatd premise in his interview. For the full text see http://www.eonline.com/Features/Features/InkTank/Hulk/Qa/index2.html
He says that once Bruce got hit with the rays, the now active gene stopped the huge dose of the gamma rays and the nanomeds from killing him. Other test subjects had died because they did not hsve the preexisitng “hulk gene” to protect them from the nanomed malfunction, and in Bruces case the excessive dose of gamma rays too.
Hope that cleared up something for those concerend out there.
Cheers
What the story needed was some sense. And to paraphrase Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park: “You are going to have some Hulk in your Hulk movie, aren’t you?”
45 minutes in and we haven’t seen the effing Hulk? And why? Because they decided to do a Hulk origin story that EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE PLANET ALREADY KNOWS.
But wait! They have to change it because, as Ang Lee said, no one would believe that radiation would cause the Hulk. Much more believable that his father spliced genes from jellyfish and reptiles and THAT plus the radiation caused it. Gotcha. Much more believable.
So after boring us with that, we get to the see the Hulk in the only really great scene in the movie: The Hulk vs Dog fight. Good stuff. Way too short.
The script, unfortunately, is full of so much crap that it’s frightening someone got paid for it. One of the biggest glaring problems: The military has Bruce. They know they can’t get him excited in any way.
So what do they do? Let in his father to talk to him. Then sit back and do nothing as he SCREAMS at his son and tries to get him riled up. Oh wait, they didn’t do nothing. THEY SAT AND WATCHED HIM ON A BIG SCREEN and did nothing.
Dumb movie. Dumb, dumb movie. The Hulk, however, did look good. Too bad there wasn’t more of him.
Truly one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. To think, I wasted money on this when “From Justin to Kelly” was available in the very next theater (would have had a better script, probably better effects too).
I will never again slam “Batman & Robin” as the worst comic book movie of all time. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new winner.
Oh yeah, and did I miss the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby credit? The movie hadn’t started to put me to sleep yet, but I don’t remember seeing it. I hope I just blinked at the wrong time…
I haven’t seen the new Hulk movie yet (I frequently don’t catch films on opening weekend), but I was amused this morning to hear that “The Hulk” led the box office lists for the weekend, with “Bruce Almighty” still in the top 5.
Obviously, a good week for men named Bruce…
I loved it. I was so happy they got in so much of the relationships that make the comic so cool. I could have done with less of the Hulk scenes and more of the characterization scenes. I did miss Rick Jones. I hope the next movie features a two-inch Hulk taking on the Abomination like IH #363!
Shawn
I’m glad people are still referring to this blog for comments on the Hulk. I too was very disappointed, for many of the various reasons already listed. That scene where Bana and Nolte are talking to each other like a bad off-broadway play was really ridiculous. And what villain was Nolte analoguous to? The Absorbing Man? Zaxx? Ursula the Sea Witch? (Come on, don’t tell me that’s not who he looked like in the water scene). And I have to tell you, my son is adopted. So, I already went into the movie not liking it when I figured out that Bruce’s last name was Crensler (or whatever it was). Yet, he seems to think of himself as Bruce Banner very quickly (only because the whole viewing public knows him as Banner). His adopted mom has that nice scene in the beginning but no mention of his adopted father. The Hulk movie to me became a weird adoption story (which is 90% of the Disney films, which is why I hate most of them). I’ll admit I come into these films with this filter in my perceptions, but hey, it still pìššëš me off.
Also, he did look too much like a cartoon. I never once had the illusion that this was a 3-D creature they filmed, but a cartoon. A well done cartoon in many places, but I never thought of him as real.
All that said, that 20 minute fight scene with the military in the desert was pretty cool.
From the novelization, I thought Bruce was supposed to be the one with the stilted emotional capacity? Seems to me he was just fine, but they could have put a cardboard stand-up in place of Jennifer Connelly and got more emotion out of her character.
The Lee/Kirby credit was one of the first in the closeing credits.
I did like the Stan Lee/Lou Ferigno cameo.
Also of interest, both Best Boy’s in the film were women…well as PAD has said, the hulk is all about transformation.
Three completely irrelevant questions:
I liked seeing Stan and Lou Ferrigno, too, but should an ultra high-tech project really trust its security to an 80-year-old man and a deaf guy?
Why couldn’t the lab assistant Bruce saved be named Rick Jones? (Unless that name had already been sold to another studio for use in a “Capt. Marvel” movie…!)
Is it just me, or would that opening credits sequence have made more sense if we were were watching a “Spider-Man” sequel featuring Dr. Kurt Connors/The Lizard?
Yes Lee and Kirby are credited.
I have been dreading the idea of this movie for over a decade (since during peter’s fantastic run) and I must say…….I loved it.
Those of you who nit pick the changes to the plot are crazy. The important thing is that the characters have real relationships that are incredibly complicated because of very troublesome upbringings, and that when the Hulk is onscreen everyone in the movie is afraid of him, while everyone in the audience loves him.
To quote my roomate, “it is unbelievable cathartic when the hulk is on screen smashing s*** up”
or “unbelievably cathartic” as I meant to say.
I may have just been looking for signs of a shared universe, but was the actor who played the President of the United States the same actor who played the President in X-Men 2?
Posted by Holiday:
I may have just been looking for signs of a shared universe, but was the actor who played the President of the United States the same actor who played the President in X-Men 2?
Doesn’t look like it. According to the Internet Movie Database, the President in X2 was played by Cotter Smith; in Hulk by Geoffrey Scott.
This is from an email I sent to a couple friends last night:
I hated that Ang Lee took the story of the Hulk and crammed it through his make-it-boring machine, tearing it apart and customizing it to his own obsessions. I have felt for a long while that Lee is an overrated filmmaker, but I really haven’t seen what some consider his best work–the Ice Storm–so I pretty much have always shrugged when people have said that they dug him. I thought “Hidden Tiger…” was pretty good, but I have never felt the urge to see one frame of that film again, and I suspect that he got cut mad slack regarding that movie–the fight scenes were unbelievable and the character development, story, and emotion were pretty dámņ thin and repetitive.
The Hulk. Ðámņ. Peter David got shoved through a chipper shredder. During the early nineties, David took the character of the Hulk and explored how Banner’s repressed issues from his childhood with an abusive father played into the creation of the Hulk. It was entirely true to Stan Lee’s vision, but it expanded upon it, and took it from a simple variation of Dr. Jeckyll to something more layered. (This was probably influenced quite a bit from Alan Moore’s rethinking of “The Swamp Thing,” but that’s another story…) And that’s the rub–David took what was already there and *enhanced* it.
I got the feeling that Ang didn’t quite respect the medium or the material and merely took it as inspiration for his own lame trip. The over the top acting (holy crap, the scenes between David Banner and General Ross in the beginning SUCKED), the idiotic use of “panels” in the editing, the šhìŧŧÿ, šhìŧŧÿ, šhìŧŧÿ, šhìŧŧÿ, šhìŧŧÿ overwrought music could’ve been replaced with a prologue with Ang himself, looking at the camera and saying, “I know what you’re thinking. I’m better than some dumb comic book movie. But the check is cashed so… I guess I have to just be my incredibly brilliant self. Well here’s how I roll, y’all. CAN DO!”
There was a great movie in “The Hulk.” There really was. Criminy, I James Cameron could’ve taken it more to the hoop.
The worst part was seeing Stan Lee as a security guard calling out Bruce’s new fake name for the dumb movie plot. Good god, that man is a pimp making his characters into whørëš. Stripperella is just the tip of the iceberg, I suppose.
I don’t know what to say. I am so angry I wasted an evening watching that film, but again, I’m very happy I went alone, with no one to witness how uncomfortable I was getting. I swear, in the dark, at the end of the film, I gave the movie two middle fingers. I don’t know what the hëll is wrong with me, but this movie pìššëš me off.
Finally, if you’re going to spend eighty million dollars on CGI effects, get a dámņ makeup guy who can make real-looking fake mustaches and beards. The idiotic film is bookended by David Banner’s laughable mustache and Bruce Banner’s unbelieveably bad beard.
Oh, and one more thing–if you’re going to make a two and half hour long movie about the Hulk, it’s important that he show up for more than a fifth of the film.
Hate. that. film.
I’ve been meaning to post my thoughts on HULK. Since I noticed the movie pretty much tanked at the box office, I expect the HUGE backlash to begin, nitpicking every last detail to death as the cause of the failure.
I think the problem is that Ang Lee made a movie too smart for kids, too thought-provoking for the “explosions-more-explosions” summer popcorn movie crowd and not “comic-booky” enough for the nerds (of which I proudly belong).
IF and I repeat IF HULK had ended at the desert scene, I’d probably say best comic book movie ever.
BUT… there was a climatic scene at the end that was so lame and so off from the rest of the movie that it REEKED of the movie studio meddling in and telling Ang Lee, “Look, we’ll let you do the movie your way but you HAVE to throw in this super hero slugfest… no, you HAVE TO… we DEMAND it”
The scene was so lame that Ang Lee shot it in darkness and under water… so the entire sort-of fight was murky to the point of almost being invisible… you just KNOW he was ashamed of it.
And I’m begging people, BEGGING them to stop asking for PAD’s Hulk on the big screen. That would fail so miserably. PAD’s Hulk worked for comic books. Period. The entire point of any Hulk movie would be to pull DRAMA from the fact a smart scientist becomes a vicious mindless beast. If Bruce Banner and Hulk are the same person, there is absolutely no drama there at all.
Oh, and the CGI Hulk had a better acting range than Ben Affleck in Daredevil.
Best–Chris
I hated the godam split screen effect.
The movie was OK , but the split screen crap was annoying as hëll.
AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just saw the movie, and apart from the ending, which did seem to be kind of tacked on, I loved it.
Granted, the split-screen works a lot better in the TV show “24”, but I liked how it was used, for the most part.
Believe me, if you want to blame someone for the Hulk Dogs, then blame Paul Jenkins for adding them to the comic book after PAD left.
The problem is, if poeple are going to go to the theatre to see HULK SMASH!, they’ll be sorely disappointed.
I went in there knowing that Ang Lee was directing it, so I wouldn’t assume it’d be a superhero popcorn movie.
So I liked it well enough, but not quite as much as I liked Spider-Man or X2
Hulk was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen both on the “Comic book” movie level and as a movie in general. The CG looked totally out of place in the scenes, Bana and Connely were boaring and flat. The Origin had little or nothing to do with the comics at all. Actually reading the source material should have been a priority, but seemingly was ignored. Bad move which is why this movie failed. Sure X2 was off base in a sad and corny way but at least it was a fun movie to watch beyond all the errors. Hulk was just an all around boring experince that makes the FF movie from the 90’s look like Lawrence of Arabia.
Not to mention all those lame panel shots of stuff. It worked on 24 because it had something to do with the story, not 8 shots of a helicopter landing.
Maybe this thread is dead now, but here’s my two cents.
Worst comic movie ever? Well, I suppose that everybody’s gotta have an opinion (and a dámņ strong one, apparently, at that). But Hulk is hardly a bad movie, perhaps just not what we were expecting. I liked being challenged by Ang’s respectful, but not subordinate vision of the Hulk icon. It’s a daunting task, even with millions of bucks at your disposal.
Dealing with the non-virtual actors, let’s give a nod for the restraint shown by the collective cast. Even Nolte was subdued for the call of the character. However, I quibble with the apparent inability of the Ross family’s to complete a conversation.
Per the CGI creations, Green looked very good and as realistic as a 15-30 foot thyroid problem could look. I was more interested with and slightly critical of the non-Hulk CGI business (like all of the plastic-looking military toys). I did like the green mist accompanying the Hulk v. Canine encounter.
SPOILER!
Okay, not really much of a SPOILER, but you’ve been warned.
The cosmic ending was a little spacy, but I’m not terribly disappointed if A. Lee wants to make a few metaphysical style points with his ending. After all, he gave us two blockbuster set pieces (the Rumble with the Dawgs and the Mesa War) that were emotionally solid, geeky cool to watch, and right-in-line with the intelligently scripted plot. If Ang wants to finish things up with an over-the-top light show, he’s earned it by that point.
Besides, does this movie really need a clear ending? It’s like complaining about the Electric Light Parade at Disneyworld. Hopefully, you went to Disneyworld for other attractions. If we’re talking about Memento or the Usual Suspects, I’ll want clarity. But Hulk is about smashing, not noggin’ scratchin’. Surely, Ang’s given me enough.
Just my thoughts, inspired by this terrific exchange of other well-considered opinions. Thanks for letting me chime in.
The Hulk is a movie before its time, plain and simple.
I went in expecting an experimental movie and it delivered. Ang Lee took RISKS. Not all of them paid off, but IMO, a lot did.
I am not one of those people who want to see a movie that details everything I already know. This movie took aspects of many things (maybe too many) and created something old, something new, a lot borrowed and a lot… green.
The plot didn’t hook up at all points, it was overly complicated, and certain relationships were weird and/or underdeveloped, but I suspect this movie is more in line with where movies are going than most of us would be comfortable with.
I prefered the Banner from the television show, but the Hulk on TV was a joke. THIS Hulk was straight from the comic books and I thought it was incredible on the screen. This Banner was underdeveloped and very boring (Bixby nailed him, and when Bixby got angry that was how people got angry. When Banna got angry that was how people have seizures, not temper tantrums).
I suspect this movie will hold up better than most in tomorrow’s world.
The advertising for this movie hasn’t done its job.
I dragged my mom and my brother to see the movie, even though they weren’t really interested in it. Afterward, I asked them what they thought. They both liked it and said they were suprised and that it was better than they thought it would be.
I tried to get one of my friends to go to the movie, but he was also unexcited about it. This is the same guy who dragged me into battlefield earth and made me sit through the whole miserable thing.
In my mind this movie has had poor advertising that does not convey the flavor of the movie.