The Incredible Hulk - Movie Review

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The Incredible Hulk
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Ooooh, ahhhhhh, yeah I bet you're all hung up on that Dark Knight movie right now and are telling all your friends about what a masterpiece it is. Well, jerk bag, some people out there don't have "friends" willing to spend ten bucks for a movie, and maybe that certain "people" just found a cheapo movie theater by his house that only costs three bucks per ticket, and maybe that "person" is me, and that "person" which is me instead decided to watch the Incredible Hulk for three bucks with his roommate Micah last night. Hypothetically, of course.

Well, jerk bag, I liked the Incredible Hulk. I was thoroughly satisfied with my hypothetical three dollar investment.

If you don't know what the Incredible Hulk is about already, well don't worry, the film makes little to no effort to catch you up. What this movie understands is that there really is no satisfactory explanation for why Bruce Banner turns into a giant green beast when he's angry. All you need to know is this: Banner was once a scientist, one of his experiments went wrong, and now the government wants to turn him into a giant green beast army. Done.

The only unsatisfactory explanation the film attempts to avoid is how exactly a giant green beast monster is able to get away from the government, in the middle of a fight, while being bombarded by tanks, helicopters, and the entire U.S. Army. There are frequent cut-aways after every scuffle, which isn't necessarily a bad choice considering that running away would probably be considered cowardly for a bullet-proof monster, but the cut-aways are awkwardly executed and leave a giant question mark in the viewers mind. This could have easily been solved by having the Hulk simply leap off into the woods, or hide behind a giant green shrub. But then again, I suppose the shrub method would end up with a pair of comical green eyes peeking out from the bushes. Excuse me while I giggle quietly to myself with that image in my mind.

What most people want to know is what separates this film, "The Incredible Hulk" from "The Hulk" just, which was a film directed by Ang Lee five years ago.

Here's the list:
1. No mutant dogs.
2. No crazy mutant "symbolic" jelly-fish
3. No split screen comic book effects
4. Less talking
5. Less green.
6. No cross-country jumping.

What the Incredible Hulk wants to be is a re-invention of the series, much in the same way Batman Begins and The Dark Knight renewed that comic book inspired series in the same way. The problem here is that the Incredible Hulk is more of a Hulk-lite as it simply takes away the elements that people disliked about the original film.

The shame here is that the original Hulk was incorrectly regarded as a "bad film" when in reality it was an alright film with some seriously bad problems. Sure, we give the new Hulk credit for having amazing actors such as Edward Norton, Tim Roth, Liv Tyler and William Hurt, but we forget that the original also had a solid cast of Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly and Sam Elliot. There were a lot of great dynamics going on, but they became overwhelmed by bland CGI battles so nonsensical it stretched our imaginations even for a story focused on a giant green monster man.

Well, I can safely say the new Hulk suspends our disbelief just long enough for us not to start questioning it. It's fun, it's entertaining, it's mildly retarded, but most of all, it's satisfying. The performances are solid, the special effects are convincing, and most of all there are lots of explosion noises that go BLOOSHHH!!

But for those who think the Incredible Hulk is completely mindless, I actually found a lot of symbolism in the film towards the story of Sampson and Delilah, notably in how Banner has his hair cut by his sweetheart Betty, or with the towering pillars during the climatic last battle. I don't know what's more interesting, that these symbolic images are here intentionally, or that they're here and no one realized it.

No matter what the case, The Incredible Hulk does it's job. It's fun to watch and teaches you a valuable life lesson.
...Unless you watched Iron Man, then you already learned that lesson pretty well already.

Watch Iron Man.