The Incredible Hulk
The Incredible Hulk is a slightly-above-average action film, smack in the middle of quality when considering the large and ever-growing pile of comic book films, but I have to believe the most fascinating scene is one which we will never see. Oh to be have been a fly on the wall for this:
"I know what the next Marvel character we should do--The Hulk."
"Didn't we do the Hulk? (long pause) And wasn't it pretty much a critical and box-office flop?"
"Yeah, but this one will be different."
How this film got made is worth is probably worth its own movie. But it got made, despite the lackluster response to Ang Lee's brooding film five years ago, Marvel Studios continues its utter domination of the movie business with a complete reboot of the green-skinned, post-atomic Jekyll and Hyde. This is not a sequel, and though the core characters are the same--Bruce Banner, Betty Ross, and General Ross, they're played by new actors, with Edward Norton replacing Eric Bana, Liv Tyler in for Jennifer Connelly, and William Hurt taking the place of Sam Elliott. This is also not an origin story. Instead, we get Bruce Banner's transformation into his rage-fueled alter-ego with a montage of clips from a fake earlier film. I wouldn't be surprised if many viewers think these are scenes from the Ang Lee film.
After that montage, we find Norton as Banner living on the lam in Brazil, laying low and trying to control his anger. We then get some sequences owing a lot to the Jason Bourne films, with the government trying to bring him in. Prominent among these government agents is a Russo-Briton played to the hilt by Tim Roth, who when he learns of the Hulk's existence sees him as the ultimate warrior's challenge.
Banner, who has been corresponding with a scientist who may be able to help him, returns to his home to get data and is reunited with his love, Betty Ross (it's indicative of how these Marvel characters are rooted in the sixties by the names of some of the female characters: Betty, Susan, Mary Jane. Names that are rarely used for girls today). All the while Betty's dad, General Ross, is on Banner's heels, hoping to use the gamma radiation technique to make super-soldiers. Roth likes the idea, too, and ends up juicing himself with it and turning into a bigger, meaner Hulk, and a face-off occurs in the middle of Harlem.
Most of this works okay. Louis Leterrier, who made the Transporter films, is about as far removed from Ang Lee as you can get. Still, I didn't think the action sequences were great, some of them were a little too frenetic. And I just don't find the Hulk that interesting, even when I was reading Marvel comics years ago. He's just too limited (for a while he was a smart Hulk, and that's what we may get next). At least the dialogue and story aren't insulting to the intelligence, like the Fantastic 4 films are.
I don't think I'm giving anything away by mentioning that Robert Downey, Jr. has a cameo in this film as Tony Stark (Iron Man) to set up the future Avengers film, and I'll admit that that stimulated the geek part of my brain. Face it, people who don't like comic book films, they are not going away anytime soon.
"I know what the next Marvel character we should do--The Hulk."
"Didn't we do the Hulk? (long pause) And wasn't it pretty much a critical and box-office flop?"
"Yeah, but this one will be different."
How this film got made is worth is probably worth its own movie. But it got made, despite the lackluster response to Ang Lee's brooding film five years ago, Marvel Studios continues its utter domination of the movie business with a complete reboot of the green-skinned, post-atomic Jekyll and Hyde. This is not a sequel, and though the core characters are the same--Bruce Banner, Betty Ross, and General Ross, they're played by new actors, with Edward Norton replacing Eric Bana, Liv Tyler in for Jennifer Connelly, and William Hurt taking the place of Sam Elliott. This is also not an origin story. Instead, we get Bruce Banner's transformation into his rage-fueled alter-ego with a montage of clips from a fake earlier film. I wouldn't be surprised if many viewers think these are scenes from the Ang Lee film.
After that montage, we find Norton as Banner living on the lam in Brazil, laying low and trying to control his anger. We then get some sequences owing a lot to the Jason Bourne films, with the government trying to bring him in. Prominent among these government agents is a Russo-Briton played to the hilt by Tim Roth, who when he learns of the Hulk's existence sees him as the ultimate warrior's challenge.
Banner, who has been corresponding with a scientist who may be able to help him, returns to his home to get data and is reunited with his love, Betty Ross (it's indicative of how these Marvel characters are rooted in the sixties by the names of some of the female characters: Betty, Susan, Mary Jane. Names that are rarely used for girls today). All the while Betty's dad, General Ross, is on Banner's heels, hoping to use the gamma radiation technique to make super-soldiers. Roth likes the idea, too, and ends up juicing himself with it and turning into a bigger, meaner Hulk, and a face-off occurs in the middle of Harlem.
Most of this works okay. Louis Leterrier, who made the Transporter films, is about as far removed from Ang Lee as you can get. Still, I didn't think the action sequences were great, some of them were a little too frenetic. And I just don't find the Hulk that interesting, even when I was reading Marvel comics years ago. He's just too limited (for a while he was a smart Hulk, and that's what we may get next). At least the dialogue and story aren't insulting to the intelligence, like the Fantastic 4 films are.
I don't think I'm giving anything away by mentioning that Robert Downey, Jr. has a cameo in this film as Tony Stark (Iron Man) to set up the future Avengers film, and I'll admit that that stimulated the geek part of my brain. Face it, people who don't like comic book films, they are not going away anytime soon.
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