The Incredible Hulk

(2008) dir. Louis Leterrier
viewed: 10/22/08

Marvel Comics, which now produces its own films, has hit the cinema hard this year, harder every year, it seems.  But in bringing back The Incredible Hulk, rather than working from its 2003 flop, The Hulk, directed by Ang Lee, they kind of did a re-boot.  Now it’s Edward Norton as the beleaguered Bruce Banner, running from the gung-ho evil military who just wants to make unholy weapons out of science gone mad.

The Hulk was never a big fave of mine in comic books, but I did recall liking a couple of stories, when he fought the Abomination, the Wendigo, and Wolverine.  The Hulk himself is kind of dull, “Hulk Smash” is his catch-phrase after all, not exactly like he’s quoting Nietzsche.  And for this film they got it, rather than fighting Nick Nolte in some spiritual ephemera as in Lee’s The Hulk, we have a big, brawling beastie for the Hulk to battle.  Lots of things go boom.  Lots of things get smashed.

The problem is the FX.  It is slick and all, with dramatic stances and camera movement, but he looks utterly unreal.  I know how stupid that sounds.  He’s the “incredible” Hulk.  The problem is that the FX need to make him credible.  It actually made me think a bit of Peter Jackson’s King Kong (2005), in which an incredible creature crushes New York (poor New York, everybody wants to smash it up), and then has a tender moment with a woman on a cliffside.  Jackson’s movie was pretty lame, but Kong was credible.  The Hulk is a cartoon.  And he jumps around and leaps and smashes like a video game, similar to the visual issues I had with Spider-Man (2002).  The animation FX are slick but not credible as reality enough to really “believe”.

Does that really matter?  Not necessarily.  But if you find yourself thinking it while all the dramatic moments happen, then you’re obviously not involved with the film on a level that you perhaps should be.

But, all said and done, it’s not too bad a film.  It’s okay.  I still give my credit to Iron Man (2008), the best of this year’s lot of Marvel comic action films.  They are going to keep ‘em coming, smashing up the cinema, crashing on the box office, until the cash cows die.