I’ve commented on the movie from time to time as various trailers and stills… I believe the words I used were “it looks cool, but uninspiring.”
So that’s where I was when I saw the film. I liked Ang Lee’s movie, but as much as I defended it when it came out I can honestly say I haven’t had any desire to re-watch it, even though I picked it up on DVD. IRON MAN rocked my socks off and I was hoping I didn’t feel “meh” on THE INCREDIBLE HULK.
And I don’t feel “meh” on THE INCREDIBLE HULK. I actually feel pretty energized, still after nearly a week. Is it as good as IRON MAN? Nope, but it’s still pretty damn good. Edward Norton is great in the role, great enough, in fact, to sell the CG character when he appears.
As a reboot it’s a success. I spoke with Kevin Feige before the screening (look for that interview very, very soon) and he said that all over Marvel’s history you’ll find one-shots, different artists' interpretations of character origins or specific moments within the history of a certain character, and that’s how they viewed Ang Lee’s movie going in and that’s how it feels.
The movie opens with a great credits sequence that gives you flashes of the origin before it drops you in the middle of a story already in motion. I love movies that do that and by viewing this film as a reboot they assume you get it and if you don’t , well… you get a recap during the credits, almost like an episode of Lost or 24.
What’s great in the opening is that they don’t blow their wad with a big CG sequence. When the experiment does go wrong and the Hulk appears, you see from his point of view, and you can feel the rage just in how the camera moves… and the destruction he leaves completely sets us up… You see General Ross terrified, you see Betty hurt… and now we know where Norton stands, where Betty stands and where General Ross stands.
What’s interesting to me with General Ross’ character is that you come to suspect that he is driven to capture Banner not out of any need other than to capture the being that dared put fear into him.
Louis Leterrier does a fine job of keeping the movie running, but taking time for the slow build. In a way, I wish they could have kept the Hulk out of the trailers because it does undercut the build a bit.
Norton spends the first part of the movie in Brazil, hunkering down, looking for a cure. He works at a bottling factory, which is a great set in the daytime and an even better set at night when we see the first Hulk out.
This was far and away my favorite scene in the movie. It’s not as big or flashy as the later CG rampages, but that’s what I love about it. Leterrier treats it as a horror scene. When the Hulk enters the scene, he’s kept in shadow. The soldiers and local roughnecks are terrified. You hear the destruction, then you see it a second later, just missing Hulk in the act.
And the sound design… that’s what sells the scene. In many ways we are the eyes of Tim Roth’s Emil Blonsky for this sequence and just as he is awed by what is going on, so are we.
This is also the first time we hear The Hulk speak, but it’s very subtle, many in the audience not hearing it. It could have been the growl of destruction, but it very much wasn’t.
Loving this sequence doesn’t mean the CG is shitty. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little cartoony when the big Abomination/Hulk battle rages in the final act, but honestly, by the time we’re at that point, we’re hooked. It’s the Spielberg JAWS theory at work. When he was confronted about the unrealistic ending of the shark jumping out of the water, onto the boat and exploding with a shot to an airtank, he responded that if he didn’t have the audience by that point, then there was no saving the film.
The reality is that Norton and Roth both play the hell out of the movie and have you invested in their characters, so when they're CG creatures, you still picture Norton and Roth and carry that baggage with you.
Liv Tyler, William Hurt and Tim Blake Nelson are all strong in the supporting cast. There is a little King Kong or Beauty and the Beast to Betty and Hulk’s relationship… but there’s also an undercurrent of the abusive husband going on. Norton’s torn up, he’s driven to cure himself and control his anger by the fact that he hurt Betty when he first transformed.
She doesn’t look at it that way, but he sure does. It haunts him, it drives him. In other words, it gives him real character.
I think that’s the biggest surprise of the movie. We knew that Leterrier would bring the action. His work on the TRANSPORTER guaranteed us that. The worry was that after all the negative buzz with disputes between Norton and the producers that it’d just be a hollow shell of a movie… pretty, with good action, but empty. That’s not the case.
That said, I’m really damn curious about what these 70 missing minutes will be… Leterrier has said there’ll be 70 minutes of cut footage on the DVD and Blu-Ray releases. I recently toured the NY Marvel Comics offices and while I was there I saw a Hulk board with stills from the movie. Most of them were stills we’d seen before, but there was one of Hulk standing on an iceberg and a killer whale jumping at him, jaws open.
Having seen the movie… not only is that scene not in the film… but at no point is there snow or ice or anything like that. What the hell was that?!? Where the hell was that?!? Very curious.
Okay, rambling over… The movie’s solid, the movie’s fun and, the best part… you don’t have to check your brain at the door.
