So I finally caught 'The Incredible Hulk' today at the Palms.
Movie trailers included 'Clone Wars' (which is actually a TV pilot), 'The Mummy 3', 'Hellboy 2', 'X-Files', 'The Spirit' and some dumb-looking Will Smith comic movie. The Mummy films I've never seen, although I fell asleep during the mindless action of 'Van Helsing' (same director). X-Files has more mythology than I will ever catch up with at this point. Clone Wars trailer didn't really impress, however I'm still curious. Hellboy looks like real fun. And the Spirit, whatever the heck that is, has definitely caught my attention.
My familiarity with the Hulk is limited to the 1990 TV-movie 'Death of the Incredible Hulk', which I watched with my uncle Frank during a school break that year. And that's really it. I may have seen the TV series intro a couple times but never stuck around to watch. I know I was curious to see the Ang Lee interpretation (for I quite enjoyed 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon'), but everyone told me "it sucked" so I steered clear.
This movie represents an interesting chapter for Marvel Entertainment. I have to be honest here: I've not been impressed with the majority of movies based on their superheroes, assuming I even bothered to see them at all. 'Spider-Man' has been their only real success prior to this year, and mostly by virtue of the second film (third one was a huge disappointment, though still fun in a guilty sort of way). I realize the 'X-Men' are very popular, but to me the jury is still out as to how much replay value you can get out of them. 'The Incredible Hulk' is second in a new line of 'independent' films Marvel has started putting out ('Iron Man' was the first). It should be interesting to see what else will come out of this venture... assuming there are any Marvel superheroes left that haven't been sold to the other major Hollywood studios.
'Hulk' also has the thankless task of dealing with the existence of its previous lackluster theatrical incarnation. Originally conceived as a 'loose' sequel of sorts, the story was largely re-written by Edward Norton when he was cast as Bruce Banner. The film is now said to be 'closer' in tone to the TV series, and does not connect to the Ang Lee version in any way. In technical terms this is a reboot, as its continuity has been completely reset. Since an 'origin story' was already done for the last movie, director Louis Leterrier chooses to not bother with one here. Instead we get 'flashes' of the Hulk's background during the opening titles, clearly establishing the 2003 movie (for anyone who saw it) as noncanon.
We catch up with Banner in Rio, Brazil, where he appears to be hiding out with his dog in the slums of the city. His neighborhood is so densely populated you can't even see the mountainside underneath layers of houses stacked on top of each other. It is a haunting site, beautiful and terribly wrong. If a landslide happened underneath these people, they wouldn't know it until their whole village caved in. Yes, the image really does deserve its own paragraph in describing.
Banner occupies himself with taking meditative anger management lessons and making his living at a bottling factory. During a workplace injury some of his blood drips into one of the sodas (a sickly-yellow carbonated drink with some made-up brand name that made me think of either Kick -remember them?- or Jolt). Some unlucky beverage drinker in the U.S. (played by Stan Lee himself) is poisoned as a result, and word of it attracts military general Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross (William Hurt, rendered completely unrecognizable with his mustache and cigar). Ross sends a team to Brazil to capture Banner. The fate of the poisoned Kick drinker, meanwhile, is never mentioned. Kinda makes you not want to drink bottled beverages, doesn't it?
Ross wants to experiment on Banner with the hopes that the military can create an entire army of Hulks. I'm just trying to think if there's anybody in this world I hate strongly enough to nominate as their drill sergeant.
The military team is led by Russian-born British special ops Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), who establishes himself as Banner's nemesis when he shoots his dog (like the Kick drinker, the poor pooch is quickly forgotten about). Banner manages to elude Blonsky's thugs, only to be chased and captured by some random punks he accidentally bumped into while he was running. I get the impression this is 'typical' Hulk formula set-up. Banner's Portuguese sucks: "Please don't make me hungry. You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry." (I guess I can relate; I've been told I'm not exactly nice when I'm hungry either). Blonsky catches up and watches his team get trashed.
I remember after seeing 'Iron Man', I complained that his nemesis lacked sufficient motivation to be the one fighting in a battlesuit against Tony Stark. Regretfully, Blonsky is even guiltier in this respect. Here's an opponent who seems mildly interesting when we first meet him, but upon surviving his first encounter with the Hulk devolves into a villain obsessed with merely obtaining Banner's power. It is therefore no spoiler at all to reveal that he's the guy Hulk is destined to duke it out with in the end (he becomes 'an abomination', which I take for meaning as referring to 'The' Abomination). He has no personal stake in what's happening, nothing to contribute to society (or more importantly, to this story), and therefore no reason to even exist.
Rounding out the cast is love interest Betty Ross (daughter of General Ross, played by Liv Tyler who I absolutely cannot stand... great, now that damn Aerosmith power-ballad is stuck inside my head). Personally, I find it most bothersome when fragile-looking female characters get all teary-eyed over Big Dumb Ape Boyfriends. I wasn't fond of it in Beauty and the Beast, I couldn't stand it in Peter Jackson's 'King Kong', and I don't care much for it here. It just seems somehow wrong, the whole cliche of the damsel seeing the monster's 'sensitive side' or whatever.
In one scene, Banner passes on his chance to have sex with Liv Tyler because he fears he might turn into the Hulk if he gets too excited. Liv's character meanwhile seems strangely turned on by the idea. But now hold that thought for a moment while I describe the Hulk for you:
The 'analog' days of Lou Ferrigno playing the Hulk are long over. And although he's not as rubbery as his 2003 incarnation, Hulk is still portrayed as an impossibly huge computer-generated monstrosity. He does not suffer from the same lack of texture as Gollum or CG Yoda (that annoying almost-slightly-out-of-focus look), however there is a 'watery' presence to him -almost like the ill-fated senator from the first X-Men movie- that is most noticeable whenever he transforms. One critic felt inspired to call him a "dark, shiny muscular pickle". By far the goriest aspect of the final fight between Hulk and the Abomination, was that I kept expecting one of them to burst open like a water balloon.
There is a cameo appearance by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in what was perhaps the most rewarding moment in the movie -even though it had nothing to do with the rest of the story and just felt sort of tacked on. Personally I find it difficult to accept that these two stories can occupy the same fictional universe. 'Iron Man' had this rather nice low-key cinematic style to it (say, when does the new Batman come out again?), whereas the Hulk by his very nature flourishes in excess ("Hulk... Smash!!"). But something is clearly happening that links these two mythologies, and so far it's going completely over my head. (I still have to see the post-ending to 'Iron Man'... I even stuck around this time to see if there was one for this movie, and there isn't).
From what I've seen here, there's no reason to go back and Netflix the Ang Lee version. Unless anyone who loved it would care to enlighten me. The subject line above I shamelessly borrowed from A. O. Scott of the New York Times. This review has been brought to you by Kick, the hardcore psycho-nitro drink in a can. Too bad they no longer make the stuff.
Later.