'The Incredible Hulk' - A Smashing Surprise
By: Tim - aurora - Dunn

I have a confession to make, one that a few already know, I did NOT want to go see 'The Incredible Hulk'! The CG in the trailers came off as hideous at best. Thinking back to Ang Lee's attempt at the Hulk and well my almost complete dislike of all three Spiderman movies (for me the opening credits and the genesis of the Sandman were just about the only saving graces in Spiderman 3). So when my nieces, who are here visiting, wanted to go see 'Kung Fu Panda' the thought of joining them instead of suffering through the Hulk was almost over powering. What I did believe was that this movie was indeed going to be a major award winner but the flavor of the trophy would be more of a fruitier flavor, something in the berry family if you get my drift. Now you may count that as my confession, but alas here it really is, I liked 'The Incredible Hulk'! Sorry it's not as good as 'IronMan' but after the ending your eyes get opened a bit on that claim.

 

 

One of the best things going for this movie is that its a sequel that is not a sequel. It does not waste time on recreating the origin story in its entirety so it does use the basis laid by Lee's work five years ago. In order to bridge the gap between the two stories and whole new cast they take the opening credits sequence plus a few more seconds to recreate the just of Lee's movie using the new cast and start off pretty much five years later. That fixed both the new visualization and sequel issue all in a minute or two and in a happy to see manner.

 

 

Now with it five years later and 158 days without Hulk incident we find Bruce Banner (Ed Norton)in Brazil working in a bottling company and communicating with a Mr. Blue, who is trying to help Banner find a cure. Casting Norton as Banner was a brilliant move in my opinion, he played his role very well as a mild manner individual trying to hide from everything, a longing lover, a lost scientist and above all a seeker for inner peace. Add to that his sort of look alike with Bill Bixby who played Bruce Banner in the late 70's TV version of the story which I loved to watch as a kid. Speaking of which while there's no Bixby you do get a couple great cameo's of Lou Ferrigno who played Bixby's counter role as the Hulk in the TV series and is the voice of the Hulk. There is also a decently fun scene with Stan Lee.

 

 

Naturally it does not take long for Banner to be found by the relentless General Ross who is still hunting Banner to recreate the ultimate super soldier. General Ross has recruited Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) to help hunt down Banner but once he runs into the Hulk, his warrior blood begins to boil. With Banner once again rampaging as the Hulk it's time to return to get the data from the original Gamma burst experiments and get himself cured. During this time he runs back into Betty (Liv Tyler), both his co-researcher and ex-lover and together they are off to find Mr Blue.

 

 

With the failure to capture Banner in Brazil the General finds Emil lusting to find and renew the fight against the creature with the wish he knew what he knows now with a body ten years younger. Ross tells him that could be arranged. Thus the old lab is opened and a smaller, more controlled dosage of the serum that helped create the Hulk is given to Emil, just enough to make him a little bit more and better then your average soldier. With his new found youth and strength, encounter two with the Hulk ensues and again Emil is squashed by the Hulk, literally. Lucky for Emil that serum has some good after effects for him. Unfortunately one of them is the want, or for his mind need, to be bigger and better. With Banner finally meeting up with Blue he gets his shot at the cure but in the process finds a man believing Banner holds the key to fixing everything in the world from his blood. Naturally this can't be a good thing and in true comic book fashion Emil gets what he wants and becomes an Abomination equal to if not better then the Hulk in size and strength. Thus the climatic battle is setup.

 

 

One of the interesting things to note about this movie is that Norton was one of the writer's for this movie, which helps build his character up decently. But Norton fought for an additional 20 minutes of film to be added to the theatrical release (hearken to this those would be DVD buyers, make sure you wait for the full cut when it comes out!). Now after Spiderman 3, I'm honestly not sure if cutting those twenty minutes out was a good thing or a bad thing. My thoughts are that those twenty minutes were probably character development of Banner and probably his renewed relation with Betty. Well character development is almost always a good thing, but alas this is a summer action flick and that's what people want to see from a Marvel adaption and that is exactly what you get. There is plenty of time to get to know who Banner is now, the state of Betty's desires and emotions, Emil's lust and Ross's determination but none of that disrupts the flow or pace of the movie. For me Spiderman 3 could have been cut in half and been a better movie. Now worries on that need with the Hulk you get just enough charcter developement time mixed with action to keep the most die hard fan/ADHD individual comfortable for the just slighlty less then two hour run time.

 

 

Now for the CG. OK, it is still very noticeably a CG flick and I'm not just talking about the Hulk and the Abomination, both with to much specularity and not enough SSS (sub-surface scattering). There were several explosion, flame and smoke effects that where almost straight off of any of the CG forum challenges. For these later effects it was both a combo of the particle rendering style and more notably the post comping. In fact sometimes you could literally see the layers which were comped to create some of these effects. Of course I'm sitting there looking for those kinds of things but hey they don't have to shout 'Hey, here I am, look at how I was made!' on the big screen instead of an article in some magazine or CG website. In this I was slightly disappointed especially after IronMan and watching trailers for 'HellBoy II' and 'The Mummy III' before the movie started that look so much cleaner in the CG department.

 

 

That's not to say that the whole movie was trash. On the contrary it worked well enough in this movie if you remind yourself that this is a comic book movie and in that case it works pretty well. In addition to that there were a few scenes and their effects that I really did like a lot. There's a scene with acoustic cannons trying to subdue the Hulk and later a scene with the Hulk trying to save Betty from an exploding helicopter that were a real joy to watch. There's a pretty decent scene with the Hulk and Betty in a cave near a waterfall during a thunderstorm where the Hulk look and compositing interaction between CG and live Liv were above average (and not just for this movie either!) But the best Hulk sequence is not the transformation of Banner into the Hulk but when the cure is racing through the Hulk and he re-transforms back into Banner.

 

 

Conclusion:
In the end, while yes the battle between Hulk and the Abomination was a CG freak feast on more then one level, the movie overall was a pleasant surprise. For a movie that I dreaded thinking about having to go see thanks to the cheesiness of the trailers I have to say that when the DVD, with the extra 20 minutes, comes out I will be buying it, popping a big bag of popcorn and enjoying my evening. As for another sequel, well lets just say they open the possibility wide open on two different fronts. One with Blue and one with well I won't spoil the special guest star at the end. What I will say is I hope that you do go to see the movie, making the studio think they should rehiring Louis Leterrier to create another summer action packed adventure with Norton, Tyler and Hurt. I don't really want to see the combo sequel that the end predicts but one with Blue would be cool.

Ratings:

IMDB Film User Rating: 8.4/10 (1,679 votes)

- For a movie going experience I give it: 3.5 out of 5 stars.
I was happily surpised by this movie. While not the smash hit of the summer it is worth the look see even for those that think the CG in the trailers make for a crappy movie as the movie is better then the trailers.

- For a technical piece of CG and VFX work I give it: 3.5 out of 5 stars.
OK, you've seen the trailers, you know what you're in for but really, it does play out well on the big screen and some of the effects are actually very good. Not the best we'll see this year but not the worst, as I feared, either.

Credits:

Bruce Banner - Edward Norton
Betty Ross - Liv Tyler
Emil Blonsky - Tim Roth
Samuel Sterns - Tim Blake Nelson
Dr. Samson - Ty Burrell
Gen. Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross - William Hurt
Major Kathleen 'Kat' Sparr - Christina Cabot
General Joe Greller - Peter Mensah
Voice of The Incredible Hulk / Security Guard - Lou Ferrigno
Stanley - Paul Soles
Martina - Débora Nascimento

Directed - Louis Leterrier

Writing Credits
Screenplay - Zak Penn, Edward Norton (as Edward Harrison)
Marvel comic book - Stan Lee, Jack Kirby

Producets
Executive Producer -Ari Arad, Stan Lee, David Maisel, Jim Van Wyck
Producer - Avi Arad, Kevin Feige, Gale Anne Hurd
Associate Producer - Stephen Broussard, Michael J. Malone

Original Music - Craig Armstrong

Cinematography - Peter Menzies Jr.

Film Editing - Clare De Chenu

Amalgamated Dynamics Inc Rhythm & Hues Image Engine Soho VFX Hydraulx Pixel Liberation Front Lola Visual Effects

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence, some frightening sci-fi images, and brief suggestive content.
Runtime: 114 min