The Incredible Bulk
Posted by Neil Brimelow | Filed under Film General
Just viewed “The Incredible Hulk” at the local cinema and here are my thoughts. Spoiler Warning; what little there is to spoil.
First, let me say that this “reboot” makes the first attempt at the Hulk look gay in comparison. Sure, there are idiots out there that still prefer Ang Lee’s Hulk, but once again, those people are idiots.
In the first attempt at the Hulk, the Hulk has daddy issues and then literally fights a metaphor of his father.
In “The Incredible Hulk” the Hulk SMASHES, and SMASHES good.
Is this new Hulk perfect? No, not by a long shot.
Here’s my tick list of things I did not like with T.I.H.
Ed Norton was not a good in the role. Not that he was not a good choice for the part, he was, but for some reason I felt that he seemed distant in this movie. Hard to put my finger on.
HULK CGI. I must admit, creating, rendering, coloring and lighting a huge green monster must be difficult, but I would have thought five years later we would have a credible looking Hulk. The SFX company that created the bulk of the Hulk and Abomination animation was the company Rhythm and Hues, which traces it’s roots back to Triple I and TRON. They did a very good job I must say, but the Hulk fell apart when it came to close ups of the face. The Abomination fared much worse overall and in some shots looked downright crappy. Most people won’t notice, nor care though, I am extra picky though. I wish WETA would have done T.I.H. as their work on just King Kong was outstanding, let alone the neigh unbeatable LOTR SFX. However, I must admit, WETA would have cost significantly more.
No music. I was working out at the gym before I went to see T.I.H. and Raiders of the Lost Ark was on the tele, and it reminded me how a great movie, plus great musical score=Awesome movie. T.I.H. pretty much was devoid of any music. This has become a trend in Hollywood, with some directors abandoning the traditional film score to “let the audience decide what they think is emotional, instead of cueing it with music.” That’s all fine and good if what you see on screen evokes emotion, but mostly all movies today don’t. 2001: A Space Odyssey had practically no music in it, but at some points in the movie it is extremely intense; music would have ruined those intense scenes.
I guess most movies today just simply don’t deserve a good film score, and I don’t think audiences realize they are missing out. Eh, I could prattle on all day about this subject, but moving on.
Superhero Desensitization. Previously superhero movies were generally done poorly and were released infrequently. Now, there are several superhero movies that come out every year, and all pretty much follow the same damn plot: First they do the Origin story, then reveal that there is a virtually IDENTICAL villain that has the same powers as the hero, albeit stronger and then the two fight it out and then the hero wins. The End. BOOOORING.
The Hulk falls victim to this as well, but I did not mind it as much; watching the Hulk literally pummel the Abomination into the pavement was satisfying. 
Spiderman 2 has my favorite fight scenes between a superhero and villain; between Spidey and Doc Ock. Why the scenes work so well is that the fights bring out the humanity of Spiderman and show that he is vulnerable like the rest of us, even with his super powers, and that Spiderman can be killed. To me, Spiderman 2 is the Superhero movie made yet. It works on just about every level and future writers and directors should try to top it, but they won’t. Fuck, even DARKMAN was better than most superhero movies today.
The End. No, literally, the end of the movie made no sense. Hulk stops short of killing the abomination, but there is no conclusion. They should have shown Blonsky changing back to his human form and then being put into some sort of stasis cell in another scene. There is no wrap up at all to WTF happened to the abomination at the end of the movie.
Next movie. They should make the next Hulk movie darker and more tragic; i.e. the villain needs to kill Betty Ross in the next Hulk movie and then have the Hulk go APESHIT on the villain. That pretty much sums up what I think they need to do with the next Indiana Jones movie; Kill Indy’s son and maim Indy. After all, in the canon, Indy’s son was not mentioned and Indy ends up sans an eye by the time he is in his 90’s. We already know Indy cannot die, thanks to the Young Indy series; we know he lives till his 90’s and that he loses an eye. However, his son could be killed off and it would take the audience by surprise and bring some fucking Pathos back to the series to finish it off.
Shame that an Incredible Hulk sequel most likely won’t be made. Norton was apparently “difficult” to work with and even contested a screenwriting credit against Zak Penn, so he won’t be back and I can’t see the producers re-rebooting the Hulk with yet another Bruce Banner. On that note, the movie did make me realize how great Bill Bixby was in the role of David “Bruce” Banner in the t.v. series.
Overall, The Incredible Hulk delivered on the “Hulk Smash,” which I am happy about, but it was lacking in a lot of other areas.