Doctor Ess Reviews The Incredible Hulk

Ed Norton is absolutely solid. He can carry a film on his shoulders. He’s played characters that have dual personalities before. He’s one of the best. And as you watch INCREDIBLE HULK, you’ll never be displeased when he’s on screen. It’s the time when he isn’t on screen that is more problematic. Is this the long awaited reboot that we’ve all been hoping for? Not exactly. But it does cover some sins of the past while at the same time committing a few of its own.

First of all, I need to get this off my chest. A quick open letter to Hollywood. Can this PLEASE be the LAST film about some kind of super soldier drug? How many times have we seen this plot device? Don’t you think that at this point, the military has seen enough of these movies that they realized that if you were to build a super soldier, there is not way to control them and they always get out of control and have to be “neutralized”? I’m officially done with this concept for a long while. Maybe Captain America will do some kind of new take on it and revive it.

What worked:

This has THE best Stan Lee cameo EVER! Instead of just having him as a passerby, a mailman, or some other completely unnoticed background character, he actually gets a few more frames of focus and something cool to do. I won’t give it away but I loved how they incorporated him into the film in his cameo.

The opening long tracking shot is really compelling. It seems almost out of place and is reused a few times later in different vantage points (probably because it is so amazing). What’s even better is the focus on life in Brazil where Bruce is hiding out in the opening half of the film. This is BY FAR, the most interesting part of the film. If they had just kept focusing on life for Bruce, dealing with his anger, trying to stay calm, but intensely lonely, this film could have been an IRON MAN or BATMAN BEGINS. Things start falling apart and it moves from being a great character piece as soon as HULK starts showing up.

There is a nice nod to the TV series theme song as Bruce is walking alone. We hear that classic piano riff. Loved it. In fact, they should have used it more. There is also a great cameo with Lou Ferrigno as a security guard. I love it when respect is paid to past stuff that was really great. The only thing sad about it was that, at least in the audience I was in, the demographic skewed so young that I guarantee no one knew what these cameos and nods were.

Tim Roth is great in this. He always is. But let’s be honest, he doesn’t look like a soldier at all. They should have had him shave and cut his hair. He looks more like a hipster than an elite soldier. But that’s a small issue. He is awesome as the bad guy and his downward spiral is really cool.

Tim Blake Nelson is a national treasure. I love this guy. I love that he has something more than a bit part in this. They are setting him up as the villian in future films. His character is genuinely weird and uncomfortable in this. He would make a great and unpredictable bad guy down the road.

It is a tribute to the greatness of IRON MAN that when you see the last scene where Robert Downey Jr. cameos as Tony Stark, you go nuts. It is so fun even for those few minutes of screen time. It shows the goodwill IRON MAN has built up but also illustrates where this film went wrong. It is great to see so much talk about the AVENGERS though.

What didn’t work:

Liv Tyler is beautiful and sometimes charming in certain roles. But her, as a genetic/nuclear scientist? It just doesn’t even pass the most basic believability factors. That being said, she isn’t too bad up against Norton and there are a few moments where there is some good chemistry.

William Hurt is great as usual. The problem is that he is given the MOST cliched character role as the general who is chasing Hulk. This is a similar problem to IRON MAN. The bad guys are almost cartoon like and certainly, completely 1-dimensional.

There is a great chase scene through the shanty towns of Brazil that is intense and well paced. Then HULK appears and he looks SO unbelievable that it completely kills your suspension of disbelief. He looks like a cartoon still. Remember how everyone was pissed that Hulk looked too CG in the trailers and the director spent A LOT of time trying to convince everyone that the effects were “not finished yet” and “he would look much better in the final cut”. Well, he doesn’t. Honestly, I think they are still 10 years away in terms of CG in order to render a believable HULK. Whereas something like IRON MAN, there are many straight lines so computers can render it so realistic that you can’t tell it isn’t real. Hulk on the other hand is all muscle. His body looks “ok”. His face looks like a cartoon. It just doesn’t work. And honestly, this is THE BIGGEST thing that killed the film for me.

Where the Hulk CG issues are most apparent is in the middle battle scene at a University where there is very little tension. The whole battle between Hulk and a small army regiment seems ill-conceived.

Believe it or not, but the ending action goes on “too long”. The smashing and destruction become tiresome. There is no real sense of danger for Hulk. We all know he will live. We know the bad guy will be defeated. But it isn’t even that fun just watching it happen. I will grant that the CG action is well staged and shot. It is very imaginative. But give me more character work from Norton. Show me what it’s like to be Bruce, alone, cold, no one to turn to, and a frightening anger inside.

In the end, this was close. It really was. I can definitely see what Norton was going for here with his script. My hunch is that he wanted more of a character piece and the rewrites brought too much action in. I can see now, why Norton and Louis butted heads on the script. This could have been an IRON MAN or BATMAN BEGINS. What we got is MUCH better than DAREDEVIL but not really that big of a step up from the HULK film a few years ago. At least Hulk isn’t 50 feet tall in this.