Box office records? Nope. Expectations? Definitely. Ang Lee’s 2003 go at the green machine? Without a doubt.
I’ll get the obvious comparisons out of the way right now– Hulk smashes his previous incarnation, but he’s going to have to work a bit harder if he wants to smash iron.
Comparisons aside, though, Hulk is a suprisingly entertaining movie.
The idea of a man turning into an uncontrollable beast isn’t new. In fact, I’m sure Stan Lee knew this when he created the character over 40 years ago.
The movie leans heavily on many of these tropes, starting with the reverence of the sasquatch where we only see the green lug in shaky fights and dark corners.
It then moves into a Marvel rendition of King Kong with Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross tenderly caring for the Hulk.
But at the heart of it, this is really a Jekyll and Hyde story. It’s a story about inner demons and how to control that part of us that none of us wants to let out.
It helps that Marvel recruited some top talent for the job. Ed Norton, Liv Tyler, William Hurt, and Tim Roth bring some gravity to the movie and help to keep it grounded despite the absurdity of it all.
While Iron Man was light and fun, Hulk is dark and brooding. The destruction that Banner causes when he’s the Hulk is not something to be paid off out of the deep pockets of Stark Industries.
Instead, the destruction that Hulk brings is very real and very scary. Banner knows what he is and tries without success to contain the evil that he becomes.
But as is always the case, there are those who want power no matter how dangerous it is and it doesn’t get much more powerful than Hulk. Until Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) shows up to become his own version of destruction.
The special effects and fight scenes in Hulk are really quite masterful. This isn’t Saturday morning cartoon Hulk; this is true comic book HULK SMASH! Seeing him tear apart cars and generally pummel things to a pulp is truly exciting.
The filmmakers really captured the essence of what Hulk is, and didn’t let the special effects get too cartoony. Hulk feels weighty. He feels dangerous. He feels real.
The only points against Hulk are really that it’s tied down to a hokie story about gamma rays and biological voodoo.
In a technological age, I’m much more apt to believe a man can make a rocket suit than a man can get overdosed on radiation and subsequently ignore the laws of physics. Where does all that Hulk muscle mass come from anyway?
This is an action movie more than a family movie, and if you like pure action like the Bourne movies, then you’ll probably like Hulk even more than I did. It’s not the best movie of the summer, but it’s definitely worth a watch.
Verdict: B- Tilt: B+