"The Incredible Hulk" - movie review (full spoilers)

I'm not a huge comic book fan. I mean, I've been known to read the occasional comic book here and there, but it's not my preferred form of entertainment. I have become acquainted with many comic book characters pretty much through their depictions in television shows and movies. I remember that I watched "The Incredible Hulk" when it was a TV show, and I enjoyed it a lot. Bill Bixby was really good, but when he got mad, he turned into a very green Lou Ferrigno. When the movie version "Hulk" came out a couple years ago, I saw the trailer, and it did nothing for me, so I had no interest in seeing the film, though I think by that time, I'd seen a number of other movie properties based on comic book characters. To me, it's not the source material that matters necessarily - it's how the story is translated on film.

I hadn't even known until very recently that a new Hulk movie was being made. While in the theatre to see something else, the trailer for "The Incredible Hulk" came on, and my first thought was, "They're making that movie again?" And then I saw that Edward Norton (I could swear he used to go by "Edward Norton, Jr." but I can't seem to find a reference to that. IMDB does mention that his father's name is Edward and also refers to his father as Edward Norton, Sr.) was going to be playing Bruce Banner. Well, that's certainly a good pedigree start. I first saw him in "Primal Fear", and while I thought the film itself was just ok, he was incredible in it, and he ended up getting a lot of attention for his performance in that film as well. And then I saw that William Hurt was in the movie as well. Wow, ok, totally adding to the credibility factor there. I love William Hurt and have ever since I saw him in "Body Heat" (incredible movie, btw). The movie footage looked good too, so ok, put the movie on the list of things to see.

Overall, I liked the film. The story was interesting, they gave Bruce Banner a good enemy (a couple of them, actually), and they also gave him a good relationship. The action sequences were awesome as you'd imagine (though for some reason, I kept flashing back to "Cloverfield" during some of the fight sequences in New York), and while there were some imperfections in the CGI when it came to the Hulk, it wasn't bad and generally not distracting enough as a whole.

The performances all around were stellar. Edward Norton does a terrific job in all the different emotions and situations that Bruce Banner finds himself in. It was heartbreaking to watch him as he was secretly trailing Betty at her college, and for a second, he thinks she's seen him, but it turns out that she's greeting her boyfriend, and his expression just crumbles.

Liv Tyler plays love interest Betty, and she does a really good job as well. She has a very powerful scene and a terrific change in disposition when she's in the restaurant chatting with her boyfriend, and she gets a quick glimpse of Bruce coming out of the kitchen, but when she pursues, he's gone (hiding behind a dumpster), and she tearfully begs the restauranteur to tell her the truth. And then she catches up to him in her car as he's walking in the rain, and when he realizes it's her, there's the often-used running-into-other's-arms scene, but damn, that worked so well. I can't have been the only one who swooned at that scene. Later, when they're on her school campus, and the government is after Bruce, she marches over and plants herself in front of one of the tanks and screams for them to stop and come talk to her. Her poignant yell of "Daddy" really got to me - ok, so I didn't know that the general (William Hurt) was her father.

William Hurt (not to be confused with Jeff Bridges or Jeff Daniels or Bill Pullman) was also terrific in the movie. Tim Roth was a spectacular nemesis in the film. He isn't someone I know, though he's apparently quite well known. I looked up his credits, and it turns out I have seen him before in this movie - really bizarre movie, btw. And, I did see him in "Planet of the Apes", but of course, I wouldn't have recognized him from that. I did get ripped out of the movie once - when it was revealed that Betty's new boyfriend was played by Ty Burrell. I had seen him previously in a sitcom called "Out of Practice" as well as the recently-cancelled Kelsey Grammer/Patricia Heaton sitcom "Back To You", where he played an ambitious but somewhat bumbling and put-upon news reporter. He did have a great scene, though, in his response to the general, who was trying to get him to reveal where Betty and Bruce might have run away to. Stan Lee has an awesome part in this film, much more screen time and story relevance, I think, than with his usual cameo appearances. And of course, there was Robert Downey, Jr., who I recognized just from his silhouette in the doorway, before he even said a word. Yeah, OK, so I knew he was going to be in the movie, but still! Loved his little appearance. I also loved that they put in nods to the television show. As Bruce is in Brazil (I think), he's flipping through television channels, and one of the things that comes across the TV screen is a clip of Bill Bixby from "The Courtship of Eddie's Father". Later, Bruce Banner has to get past a building security guard, who is played by Lou Ferrigno, by bribing him with pizza. Ferrigno is also credited as the voice of Hulk. And I didn't notice it, but the husband did - in one segment (I can't remember which), they used the theme song from the original television show as the musical overlay.

The major thing that I didn't care for in the film was the opening. I hadn't known that they weren't going to really include the circumstances under which Bruce Banner (BTW, why is he Bruce Banner here whereas he was David Bruce Banner in the TV show, and then in "Hulk", the lead character was Bruce Banner, but there are also characters credited as "Young David Banner" and "Teenage Bruce Banner"? No wonder he has an alternate personality - he has two names that he goes by at various times!) became the Incredible Hulk, and that by the time the film starts, he's already on the run with this monster bubbling inside that he can't control. The backstory is told in distorted clips of scenes and flashes of newspaper headlines. You get a vague idea of what happened, but it goes by so fast and is almost done in a dream-like state (probably kind of what Bruce would have remembered) that you don't really get a good idea of everything that happened. Also, this all takes place during the opening credits, so if you actually read opening credits, like me, you're trying to read the credits and look at the action on screen at the same time, and there's not really enough time for both. It's almost as if they assumed everyone knew the backstory, so this was just a bone to throw, but if you don't know the backstory, I'm not sure the prior events are clear. And even if you know the general backstory, I think it's important to know how this particular story played out because it gives history to the interactions among Bruce, Betty and the general later. At one point, I saw a flash of something that had Nick Fury's name on it. I only know his name because of "Iron Man", but I have no idea what it said about Nick Fury. I talked to someone who IS a comic book fan who saw this movie, and he missed that part completely. I expect we'll get this when it comes out on DVD, so at that point, I can go through the opening slowly to see everything, but that shouldn't be what's required.

I liked the stuff with Mr. Blue/Samuel Sterns. He was kind of a freaky character, but a lot of fun, though you know he had to be a little off his rocker when he's threatened by this guy ("Why do you have to keep hitting people?" - yeah, I know, that's not the exact quote, but I can't find it, even though I love the line.) and still voluntarily agrees to make him even stronger, thinking he could convince him to do what he wants, when he was witness to Hulk being subdued only by Betty's coaxing. (BTW, I kind of like the King Kong/Beauty and the Beast aspect of Bruce and Betty's relationship. Heck, Hulk saved Betty's life when she could have died because of her own father's actions.) But they had that scene where some of the super-serum was dripped onto his head with an open wound, and his head gets all wonky with bubbling and motion and stuff, and then they never mentioned it again. I'm told that's a set-up for when he becomes a villain, though I don't know who he is the nemesis for.

I loved the inclusion of the love scene between Bruce and Betty. Their longing for each other has been very evident, and finally, when they have a moment of quiet alone, and Betty shows her affection and compassion for Bruce by touching his face and hugging him, you can see that Bruce is overwhelmed by being alone all this time and finally having human contact, with a woman he's loved no less, so it's natural for the two to start making love. But, Bruce has a pulse indicator watch to help him know when he has to calm himself down to stave off the monster inside, and as things get hot and heavy, the watch's alarm goes off. Bruce has to explain to Betty what it's for and why he has to stop, and it's really funny as the watch's alarm is an obvious aural indicator of Bruce's disposition, which is even funnier when the alarm finally stops at the end of Bruce's explanation.

I was also laughing when Bruce Banner was trying to speak and ends up butchering Portuguese - apparently, he's pretty cranky when he gets hungry!

It was nice to see that the magic pants were back. I always thought it was weird that when Banner turned into Hulk, his shirts were shredded beyond recognition, but his pants just got shorter. Yeah, I get that they can't have Hulk wandering around butt-naked, but it was still weird. They at least tried to address the situation in this case in that the pants were at least torn in places, and he is shown trying to buy pants in a larger size and with elasticity ("mas stretchy"), but Edward Norton to Hulk is a much bigger size difference than Bill Bixby to Lou Ferrigno. When you see Betty with Hulk on the mountainside near the cave, you can see the size comparison, and for those to be the same pants, Bruce would have had to be wearing pants that were drawn up over his head.

I noticed that in the trailer, there's a scene with Bruce and Betty's new boyfriend where Bruce is hinting at the monster inside him. I don't remember that being in the movie, so I'm wondering if it's a scene that was shot that ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. If so, I hope they include that in the DVD.

OK, and the whole big stink raised about the general and his cigars? Can I just say that even knowing about the stink, I totally wasn't paying attention to what he might have had hanging from his mouth? I was much too involved in the story otherwise.


I'm including this quote from the Variety review by Todd McCarthy just because I find it really funny. :)

"Bruce Banner hides out anonymously in a Brazilian favela while desperately trying to decontaminate his blood, eliminating the cells that can make him, if sufficiently incensed, turn into a raging, bemuscled, 9-foot screamer with disagreeably antisocial habits."

As I said, in general, I liked the movie, moreso as I wrote this review and remembered all that I liked about it. I didn't like it quite as much as "Iron Man", but it was still a really good movie. Hmmm, maybe it's time for a double-feature to see both again.


Oh, and yeah, I have no idea why I happened to include so many outside links in this review.