Saturday, June 14, 2008

HULK SMASH! - The League sees a movie

It will surprise exactly nobody that I went to see "The Incredible Hulk".

While I might not have loved the movie, but I liked it pretty well. That said, I only had a few criteria heading into the flick:

A) Hulk would smash a lot of military hardware
B) There would be impressive explosions
C) The fights would be increasingly cooler and bigger throughout the movie

I am happy to say that the movie delivered on all fronts.

I think if you go in looking for a popcorn movie with a solid storyline, strong actors delivering mostly believable dialog, and buy into the pseudo-science... sure. You'll have fun.

I've never really picked up much in the way of Hulk comics. I picked up "Planet Hulk" and "World War Hulk", but aside from that, and a single Bruce Jones Hulk trade, I'm not much of a reader (I do own the issue of Hulk where Rocket Raccoon gets his first appearance). I'm not married to any particular vision of the Hulk, including the TV program. But the cartoon that was on when I was pretty little probably went pretty far to shape how I think of Hulk.

I understand that Ang Lee's "Hulk" was a bit much for most folks, and there were bits of characterization I missed from Ang Lee's Hulk versus the new version (I just really felt they were able to tap into the source of the Hulk's rage a bit more understandably in Lee's version). But, hell... this version is pretty darn good.

As you've heard, they've reset the franchise, leaning 70% on the comics and 30% on the Bill Bixby/ Lou Ferrigno TV show. It has the best Stan Lee cameo to date, too.

I think the effects were really impressive in comparison to the last go-round with the Hulk, right down to texturing on Hulk's skin, but also in how the team was able to come up with some more imaginative ways in which to demonstrate the Hulk's... Hulkiness.

Anyhow, with as downright bad as many of the Marvel movies have been (FF, FF2, Ghost Rider, etc...), this one is a lot of fun. And.... explosions. And smashing. Oh, yes... The smashing.

And, you know, Liv Tyler, if you're into that (and I think I am).

Oh, Ed Norton is a really good Bruce Banner, by the way. His natural-built-in desperate look serves him well here.

Jamie's (micro) review: RRAAAARRRRGHH!!!

If you want to get an idea of what the movie is like:

3 comments:

Steven said...

Was the line in that song, "Ain't he un-glam-or-ous?"

And was that squeaked out by Little Nell? Or maybe that chick from the Manhattan Transfer?

Simon MacDonald said...

I finally saw the movie over the weekend because my wife wanted to go. Amazingly enough she was a fan of the TV show.

It wasn't as psychologically dense as Ang Lee's version which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I would have like to see more development of the warring personalities of Bruce Banner and the Hulk.

Regardless the movie did deliver on the Hulk smashing stuff in spades which was great to see.

I really liked the cameo near the end which really shows that Marvel is starting to pull together a cohesive universe in all of their movies.

The League said...

I'll be curious to see what they do for a sequel, as well as with the cohesive universe. The Ang Lee version and the new version both tread some basic territory for the Hulk. I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do for a continuation of the story, especially if they can tackle more of the Banner/ Hulk dichotomy.