Today, ol' Jade Jaws makes a comeback- and Marvel makes a little bit of comic book movie history- with...
Produced by Marvel Studios and released the same summer as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk stars Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, a scientist who, thanks to an accident involving gamma radiation, turns into a green, rampaging giant called The Hulk whenever he gets stressed. On the run for the last five years, Banner eludes a military leader named General Ross (William Hurt) and his mercenary, Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), while desperately searching for a way to control the raging spirit that dwells within him. However, Ross digs up an old army serum to turn Blonsky into the ultimate fighter, but results in the soldier becoming a monster himself. It becomes up to Banner to use Hulk to bring him down.
Now this is more like it. The Incredible Hulk is such a vast improvement over Ang Lee's overblown, whiny, bad acid trip version. Director Louis Leterrier (Unleashed, Transporter 2) offers up a straight-ahead adventure that's one part The Fugitive and one part classic monster movie. It benefits from being anchored by an earnest performance from Norton, but the rest of the cast is fine, too. Especially Roth. Unlike Ang's take, this film is gladly steeped in Hulk lore, with references to both the comic book and the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno TV series. I also love Craig Armstrong's score. For a guy who specializes in what you might call "chick flicks", Armstrong has no problem giving The Incredible Hulk some rousing music. The main problem with the movie is that the visual effects used to bring Hulk to life still fall a bit on the short side. They're not god-awful like in Hulk, but they're still not convincing enough, and it has a habit of taking one out of the picture. In fact, the fight between Hulk and Abomination at the climax of the movie looks more like a video game than a film.
However, I tend to not let that try to hamper my enjoyment of The Incredible Hulk too much. Let's not forget, with a sense of fast fun, respect for the character, and good acting, this movie makes Universal's gargantuan 2003 version look- wait for it- puny. Marvel took the Hulk back and made the movie they wanted to make. Sorry, Edward. I love ya and respect ya, but Marvel were in the right. It's their character, and they had a game plan for their movies. Which brings us to one of the most positive legacies of The Incredible Hulk: for the first time ever, a character from one comic book movie appeared in another. In this case, Robert Downey Jr. cameos as Tony Stark from the film Iron Man, released just a month before. It was a small, but strong declaration of intent. Marvel Studios, in just their second movie, were already looking toward some pretty big things.
The Incredible Hulk
4 out of 5 Cap shields
No comments:
Post a Comment