In 2003, Ang Lee made a comic book movie that most people were disappointed by. Expecting to see an action packed beat 'em up, they instead wound up watching 150 minutes of personal demons, emotional turmoil, mutant dogs, radioactive Nick Nolte, and a lot of weird “comic book” style camera swipes. I, on the other hand, loved it. While people around me sat looking at their watches and wondering how much more they'd have to endure, I was grinning from ear to ear and giggling internally as I watched my favorite comic book characters given flesh. When the Hulk tore through the US military in the Nevada dessert, I had the fan boy equivalent of a religious experience. It was like the time I took acid and spent the entire night in a big comfy chair with my eyes closed, clutching a plastic pitchfork as wave after wave of soul warming light saturated every pore of my body. Yes, I was that into it.
In an effort to appease the first movie's haters, Marvel went the complete opposite direction with The Incredible Hulk. For starters, they replaced the entire cast and started the story over pretty much from scratch. Instead of going with a director known for emotional and thought provoking films, they hired the guy who did both Transporter movies... neither of which I was very happy with, despite having Jason FUCKING Statham as the hero. Instead of rehiring the trio of writers whose only comic book experience between them was the guy who had written for that hideous “The Crow: Stairway to Heaven” TV series, they let the lead actor cut his writing teeth on the project, and picked up a guy who worked on the second and third X-Men movies... but who also wrote the 1999 Inspector Gadget movie, the “phenomenal” Last Action Hero, and Elektra, which riles up comic fans' stomach bile almost as much as Batman & Robin. What this basically means is that the deep emotional and “heavy on the story” stuff going on in Hulk is no longer a “problem”, and Incredible is free to give people all the heavy hitting ass-whooping fight scenes that they were expecting before... as is par for the course when it comes to summer blockbusters popcorn flicks anyway.
The closest thing to a link with the 2003 movie is the beginning of our movie. When we last saw Dr. Bruce Banner, he was telling some guy in South America the downfalls of making him angry... because he wouldn't like Bruce Banner when he's angry. When we catch up to him now, we find Bruce (Edward Norton) working at a bottling plant in Brazil, learning the ways of anger management through martial arts training and working with a mysterious figure over the internet in an effort to cure himself of the gamma radiation poisoning that turns him into a 9ft tall juggernaut of green muscles when his pulse breaks 200. Do to a little quality control mix-up that involves Stan Lee (non-fan boys and girls might wanna Google him), Bruce's nemesis US Army General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) discovers Banner's whereabouts and sends in a special ops crew to tranq his skinny ass and bring him back as property of the good ol' US of A. Leading the team is a hardcore soldier man on loan from the UK named Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), who underestimates Banner and his alter ego, losing our nomadic hero after an intense chase through Brazilian ghettos and a factory showdown with his irradiated alter ego.
Having lost everything he'd worked for in Brazil after a 5 month record without Hulking out, Bruce makes his way back to the States to track down his estranged ex-girlfriend and fellow geneticist Betty Ross (Liv Tyler). Meanwhile, Blonsky and Thunderbolt hatch a plan to use a portion of the experimental “super soldier serum” that Banner poisoned himself with to make Emil into something that can compete with the Hulk on a physical level. The injection works, turning Blonsky into a poor man's Captain America, complete with enhanced strength, speed, agility, stamina, and durability... but minus the flashy costume and nifty unbreakable shield. Bruce finds Betty teaching a course at a pretty swank looking university (and dating a psychiatrist...), but their reunion is short-lived as another fight breaks out, this time on campus. Betty gets a first hand look at what her ex had become, Blonsky finds out what it's like to be kicked by the equivalent of 50 Clydesdales, and the taxpayers are about to get violenty fisted in their wallets to pay for all the military hardware that gets sent to the scrapyard. On the plus side though, Betty leaves her rebound boyfriend and heads out on the road with her one true love as the two take a trip to New York City to meet Bruce's internet friend, who may have a way to cure the Doc and bury the Jade Giant like so many barrels of toxic waste in a New Jersey landfill. But, if the Hulk's gone, then who's going to fight the big freakish monster known as the Abomination in the big final brawl through the streets of Harlem?!
The Incredible Hulk is an excellent blend of the comic with the TV show so that the casual Hulk fans wouldn't feel so estranged. For the boob tubers, the classic piano ending theme music makes it into the movie, the original live-action Green Genes Lou Ferrigno not only voices the Jade Giant but also plays a security guard (much like he did with Stan Lee in 2003), the opening credits origin sequence takes a lot from the TV show's opening (including Bill Bixby's “Gamma Chair”), and Bruce has a package mailed to him under the name of “David B.”... though I kinda grinned at that because the logical part of me was on a toilet break and I took it as a personal nod to myself. Heh heh. For the fan boys though, there's a plethora of comic references to be had. Much of Banner's character and some of the story elements mirror some of the better parts of Bruce Jones's acclaimed “Return of the Monster” storyline from a few years back, including Banner's exchange with his internet pal and they message each other under the names “Mr. Green” and “Mr. Blue”. The characters of Samuel Sterns and Dr. Samson should ring a few bells for long time friends of Big Green. A special someone makes a last minute appearance at the end of the movie that I won't ruin for anyone... although if you've seen the latest trailer for the movie then the surprise has likely already been ruined anyway. Speaking of which, this scene would've served much better as an after-credits bonus scene like the one we were given after Iron Man, but instead gets tossed in after a scene that would've served much better as the “actual” end to the movie. Then again, maybe Marvel and Paramount didn't want to piss off the same impatient fans that they forced to buy tickets for a second Iron Man after they decided to leave before that movie's credits finished.
So, which Hulk do I like better? To use a cliché that's been hammer about the skull repeatedly since wordsmith took a long, hard look at his fruit bowl, comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges. I like 'em both, so don't make me choose. The actors here are a mixed bag. Norton and Tyler were just okay. They seemed stiff and a little too mechanical, but they're both playing scientist types focused on trying to solve a problem, so I don't know if that's their fault. Meanwhile, Roth and Hurt show restraint by not taking their characters into the realm of over-the-top, power mad caricatures. It might be fun watching Jeremy Irons do something like that in Dungeons & Dragons, but if you saw that here you'd wonder why either was allowed to maintain a position of any type of power if they're so damn unbalanced and maniacal. The reaction to the CGI work has been mixed. Some people preferred the look of the Green Goliath in 2003, others like the new iteration better. I think the 2003 version was a little cartoony, but it fit with what Ang Lee was going for with the whole pop-artsy “comic book-ish” visual style. As such, I think the new Hulk looks darker and more “realistic” (as if a giant nuclear flesh golem) to fit with the more “serious” tone of Incredible. Maybe I'm being wishy-washy about my job, but I think both CGI methods work for their respective movies and I refuse to choose between which of my kids lives and which one gets fed to the alligator pit.
Oddly enough, Incredible didn't draw me in from the start like Hulk did. When Hulk came out, I couldn't shake the novelty of finally seeing my long time four color icon on the big screen. As a result, that personal bias just wasn't there for Incredible, so it had to stand on its actual merits and I wasn't getting my geekgasm as soon as I'd hoped. I started to get worried that I'd learn what it was like for 60% of heterosexual women in the world who never reach climax... until that final brawl in Harlem. Those last 20 or 30 minutes made sure I left the theater with a smile on my face and guaranteed four unholy smiley faces where before there was going to be three. Unlike Iron Man, which gave us a great all around flick with only a “better than average” finish, The Incredible Hulk strings you along with a “better than average” flick topped by a “FUCK YEAH!” ending. As such, if you're planning to see this movie, it is most assuredly a “see it on the big screen for the full big-budget action movie experience” title.
