Film Review: The Incredible Hulk

Last Friday evening, I re-discovered the joy of waiting for a film to have been out for 2-3 months and then going to the cheap movie theater a bit outside downtown, and paying two bucks to see the film instead of the requisite seven, eight, nine, or twenty. Professional film critics get to screen films free of charge; for the rest of us, there's either the cheapie screens or a bad Internet feed.

And going to the Movies 12 on Bethel Road in Columbus was the only way I was going to watch The Incredible Hulk on the big screen. That's not a knock against the quality of the film; this summer (along with the past four or five summer seasons) has been another superhero-heavy offering with shows like Iron Man, The Dark Knight, and Hancock. Of these four, Iron Man and The Dark Knight were, in my opinion, the two must-sees for film goers. But at least The Incredible Hulk displays an improvement over its prequel, and allows the audience to enjoy the action instead of being bowled over by an artistic critique that hurt the 2003 version.

The story begins in the slums of Brazil (where director Louis Letterier is at his best in detailing the city life of Rio de Janeiro) as Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) works at a soda processing plant while holding an online correspondence with a mysterious Mr. Blue over how he might be able to cure the levels of gamma radiation within his blood stream. When one of the delicious bottles of Faygo Soda is accidentally infected with Banner's blood (and winds up knocking out Stan Lee's cameo appearance in Midwest America), a team of U.S. soldiers, led by the superficially cranky General Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt, who looks and plays the character almost exactly like William Hurt did in the prequel), head to Brazil to capture Banner alive and use his infected body for further research on the installment of the general's super soldier program.

Recruited with the soldiers is evil, Russian-born British Marine Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth). Evidently he's good at running fast and killing people. Blonsky asks for, and receives, a dosage of strength-enhancing serum (similar, perhaps, to the serum Captain America received in his comic book tales) enabling him to better hunt down the Hulk.

After being ambushed and escaping the soldiers in Brazil, Banner trails back to America to reconnect with fellow scientist Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), and the two travel to New York City to find Mr. Blue and hopefully cure Banner once and for all. But like always, the government and its army screw up the protagonist's quest for peace of mind, and ultimately Banner's alter ego must strive to avoid direct confrontation with Ross's units while also fighting a mutated Blonsky, by now transformed into a monster known as the Abomination and wreaking havoc downtown.

As most people who have seen the film will agree, this a much faster-paced version of the Hulk than Ang Lee's take. I actually very much enjoyed Lee's work with Hulk because it was a different perspective on discussing the beginnings of a comic book character (The other two main examples at that time were Spider-Man, which was huge, and Daredevil, which was not.). But I can also see why people who just wanted to be thrilled by the kind of fast-paced action Spider-Man provided us with would be disappointed by Hulk. Of course, you could also argue that Iron Man was similar to the older Hulk film in terms of philosophy and pacing, but that movie was mostly successful thanks to Robert Downey Jr.'s brilliance. The action itself in The Incredible Hulk is good; nothing we haven't seen before, but enjoyable and even lighthearted at times, in retrospect to its stern predecessor.

Like always, I very much liked Norton and his portrayal of Bruce Banner. Physically he's a much closer fit to what Banner should look like, compared with the bulkier Eric Bana. Add to the fact that Norton can pretty much play anyone these days and you have a good fit. Tyler has several good moments as Betty Ross, although you can't help but question why the most brilliant scientists in comic books and movies are also the most attractive ones. The other two principal characters--Ross and Blonsky--are foils to the protagonists. Hurt (as Ross) does a good job acting like a dick, and Roth (Blonsky) channels what he did in the monkey suit in Planet of the Apes and brings that same primal nature in his role as a super solider.

The Incredible Hulk go down in comic book film as simply moving the plot along without any severe consequences to its principal characters. But it does successfully re-start the presence of one of Marvel's most popular characters on the big screen. More importantly, it moves the Marvel film branch towards its primary target of putting together that one superhero film I'm sure you've all heard about by now...

***/4 stars