That Big Green Guy
Friday night, after I picked up Marc from the train station and we had a tasty dinner (and my first martini -- fine, foofootini -- at Guido's of the summer), the two of us went to see the new Incredible Hulk movie at the Art Theatre downtown (which appears to have gotten new seats since the last time I went there, clearing up one of the complaints I've seen about it in the past).
The non-spoilerific review is that, while not up to the high standard set by Iron Man, it isn't a bad flick and it's certainly an above average action movie. The plot moved along pretty quickly -- almost too quickly, with some of the slower scenes feeling like they were just there to get you to the next action scene -- and the acting was above average, led of course by the always-excellent Ed Norton. It still fell short in a lot of places though; Tim Roth's villain feels kind of poorly written, the Hulk's CGI looks very conspicuous (but I'm not sure there was any way for it not to be), it lacked some of the humor of Iron Man, and while Liv Tyler is a bit more believable as a cellular biologist than Denise Richards was as a nuclear physicist, she also doesn't have to spout much in the way of technobabble either.
It's not a horrible movie by any stretch, however, and it's well worth seeing if you're at all interested in seeing it. I haven't seen Ang Lee's Hulk, but from what I understand, this movie is a much more conventional action movie than that one was, but that it is basically a direct sequel.
For the spoilerific review, have a look behind the cut.
The non-spoilerific review is that, while not up to the high standard set by Iron Man, it isn't a bad flick and it's certainly an above average action movie. The plot moved along pretty quickly -- almost too quickly, with some of the slower scenes feeling like they were just there to get you to the next action scene -- and the acting was above average, led of course by the always-excellent Ed Norton. It still fell short in a lot of places though; Tim Roth's villain feels kind of poorly written, the Hulk's CGI looks very conspicuous (but I'm not sure there was any way for it not to be), it lacked some of the humor of Iron Man, and while Liv Tyler is a bit more believable as a cellular biologist than Denise Richards was as a nuclear physicist, she also doesn't have to spout much in the way of technobabble either.
It's not a horrible movie by any stretch, however, and it's well worth seeing if you're at all interested in seeing it. I haven't seen Ang Lee's Hulk, but from what I understand, this movie is a much more conventional action movie than that one was, but that it is basically a direct sequel.
For the spoilerific review, have a look behind the cut.
The movie starts off with a credit sequence that I thought was pretty good -- it was a collage of news articles and reports and other paperwork giving you some idea of where Bruce Banner has been during the last five years, trying to keep out of the public eye, with a lot of references to other Marvel properties (I noticed a reference to the army buying stuff from Stark Industries, at the very least, and there were other things I recognized but couldn't place). The sequence ends with a flashback of the Hulk's origin, which brings you up to speed nicely if you don't know that much about the Hulk (which seems rather unlikely for the intended audience, but who knows).
We then go to Bruce Banner living in a Brazilian slum, working in a juice drink plant and practicing some sort of martial arts or yoga. He cuts himself in the factory and some of the blood gets into the drink, which ends up in Stan Lee's fridge and tips off the authorities to where he is. General Ross (played by William Hurt) leads a special forces team down to Brazil to catch him. For some reason, Tim Roth's character is introduced as a Russian-born British special forces soldier to lead the team. Why he had to be Russian-born (or even British -- I'm pretty sure Tim Roth is a good enough actor to do an American accent), I didn't quite understand.
Of course, things go pear-shaped for the SOCOM guys and they end up chasing Bruce through the city, where he runs into the soft drink plant where he works. I would ask why there are always big fights in factories, but the answer, of course, is that it's a very interesting tactical environment -- the same reason a lot of video games have the same sort of locales. So there is a fight between the special forces troops and Bruce, who Hulks out in short order. This is quite possibly one of the most effective action sequences in the movie, and I think it's because we don't see much of the CGI Hulk at all until the very end. This is a technique that has been used for ages, whether for practical or for artistic reasons, in some of my favorite movies -- Jaws and Alien, for example. There's a lot of tension, and it's very well executed. Of all three big action sequences (each one an act climax -- it's amazing how reading Todd Alcott's blog has made me notice the structure in movies), this is the best, I think.
The Hulk escapes, and Bruce wakes up in Guatemala, making his way back to the States. We get a few scenes of Ross and Tim Roth's Blonsky giving some exposition (and setting up a Captain America movie, it seems), while Bruce goes through Central America and gets to Culver University in Virginia, where everything began. He tries to recover the files from his research from a University computer lab, which he gets by posing as a pizza delivery guy and bribing a security guard (a fun cameo from Lou Ferrigno) with a pizza. Also in the lab is a nerd with no lines (but one great moment) played by Martin Starr, one of those guys I love to see in anything after Freaks and Geeks. Of course, the government has already taken care of the data, and he comes up empty.
This leads into Bruce meeting his old girlfriend, Betty Ross, who helped on the project that created the Hulk and is now seeing someone else (and who just happens to be General Ross's daughter, it turns out). He stays with her overnight (and, in a surprisingly refreshing twist, they don't end up sleeping together), but then it turns out the Army is on to him again (tipped off by Betty's significant other). Of course, this leads to another confrontation between the Hulk and the Army, this time in broad daylight in what must have been their equivalent of the Quad.
This time, the entire fight sequence is much less effective, I think. A big part of it is that the CGI is so obvious in this kind of a scene the the Hulk seems out of place, and unlike in Iron Man, as Chesnut pointed out, you never get to see the actual actors behind it. I'm pretty sure the helicopter gunship that comes in at the end is also CGI, which didn't help. There's also the problem that the Hulk is essentially invulnerable -- bullets don't hurt him, grenades don't hurt him, and even a gunship crashing into him doesn't hurt him, so there's not a lot of dramatic tension here. He's briefly subdued by some sort of sonic weapon, but even that doesn't last that long.
Blonsky, now pumped up on supersoldier serum, also doesn't really make for a credible threat. He may be a super special forces soldier now, but he's not going to wrestle the Hulk, and bullets don't do anything, grenades don't do anything -- so he ends up looking kind of impotent and crazy to just keep throwing himself at the Hulk (especially when he makes some crack about "is that all you've got!?"). It doesn't really come as any surprise when he gets thrown into a tree and smashed like tissue paper -- which, to be fair, is a surprisingly realistic turn here, but it doesn't do much for his character.
So the Hulk once again escapes, this time carrying Betty Ross, and once Bruce regains control they start heading towards New York, where Bruce has been in communication with another biologist since the beginning of the movie, the two of them trying to find a solution to his problem. This leads to an amusing scene where Betty brings back some clothes for Bruce to wear and includes a pair of stretchy purple shorts, which Bruce declines to take. Eventually, they get into New York and we find out that the doctor there has been using the blood Bruce sent him to culture tons more -- a treasure trove of Hulk serum, it seems. Stearns, the doctor in New York, and Betty also successfully manage to stop one of Bruce's hulking out incidents with an antidote Stearns has come up with. In contrast to the full-on Hulk fight sequences, the CGI during this particular scene works very well, I think because it only distorts Norton instead of replacing him, and because it has plenty of real scenery to interact with.
Of course, the Army is on to him again (thanks to the ECHELON-esque surveillance of SHIELD), and while Bruce is explaining to Stearns why they need to destroy all of the blood, Stearns and Banner get tranqed. Banner and Ross are taken away by the Army, while Stearns is questioned by an Army major. Then we have Blonsky come up, knock her out, and begin demanding that Stearns pump him up with Hulk serum.
Blonsky has definitely been getting nuttier and nuttier, but his demand to Stearns that he get pumped up with Hulk juice seems a little out there. I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish; he already knows that it turns you into an inhuman monster, which doesn't really come across as something he's really interested in -- so why's he do it? I didn't quite understand the weird bulging in Stearns' head when Blonsky breaks out during his transformation either, though from reading Wikipedia pages after the fact it looks like this might be a setup for the Leader to be the adversary in the sequel (though the comic character's background and the movie character's background are obviously very different). Anyway, Blonsky changes into Evil Hulk, or the Abomination, or whatever you want to call it, and that leads to fight that rages across Harlem between him and the Hulk.
The fight is decent enough, I guess, but I have to agree with Chesnut that it really looks a lot worse than the fight between Iron Man and Iron Monger in Iron Man; I think this comes down to the fact that pretty much everything we see is CGI, and that there's nothing that grounds the fight in the real world. Unlike in Iron Man, we don't get to see any reaction shots of the actor's faces, or anything but real animal instincts from either of the two combatants, so it sort of takes you out of the movie, unfortunately. This may be unavoidable with the Hulk, but it's a pitfall nevertheless.
One other thing that has sort of struck me after watching Batman Begins yesterday with Marc, is that this movie seems to remarkably devoid of the humor that seems to be a trademark of most superhero films. Even Batman Begins, which I think is one of the darkest and grittiest superhero movies I've seen (and also one of the best) has a lot of banter and quips that cut the tension, but for the life of me, I can only remember a couple of those sorts of lines in the Incredible Hulk (one being the subway line from the trailer). That kind of drags this movie down and makes it a little less fun to watch, which I think is to its detriment.
All in all though, the movie isn't bad, and worth seeing at least at a matinee, but I think the Avengers movie that they are definitely telegraphing (with Robert Downey Jr. showing up in the coda as Tony Stark to talk to General Ross about "a team we're putting together") will actually be a stronger venue for the Hulk than a movie all about the Hulk, since it gives the Hulk more of a chance to interact with non-CGI friends and enemies.
We then go to Bruce Banner living in a Brazilian slum, working in a juice drink plant and practicing some sort of martial arts or yoga. He cuts himself in the factory and some of the blood gets into the drink, which ends up in Stan Lee's fridge and tips off the authorities to where he is. General Ross (played by William Hurt) leads a special forces team down to Brazil to catch him. For some reason, Tim Roth's character is introduced as a Russian-born British special forces soldier to lead the team. Why he had to be Russian-born (or even British -- I'm pretty sure Tim Roth is a good enough actor to do an American accent), I didn't quite understand.
Of course, things go pear-shaped for the SOCOM guys and they end up chasing Bruce through the city, where he runs into the soft drink plant where he works. I would ask why there are always big fights in factories, but the answer, of course, is that it's a very interesting tactical environment -- the same reason a lot of video games have the same sort of locales. So there is a fight between the special forces troops and Bruce, who Hulks out in short order. This is quite possibly one of the most effective action sequences in the movie, and I think it's because we don't see much of the CGI Hulk at all until the very end. This is a technique that has been used for ages, whether for practical or for artistic reasons, in some of my favorite movies -- Jaws and Alien, for example. There's a lot of tension, and it's very well executed. Of all three big action sequences (each one an act climax -- it's amazing how reading Todd Alcott's blog has made me notice the structure in movies), this is the best, I think.
The Hulk escapes, and Bruce wakes up in Guatemala, making his way back to the States. We get a few scenes of Ross and Tim Roth's Blonsky giving some exposition (and setting up a Captain America movie, it seems), while Bruce goes through Central America and gets to Culver University in Virginia, where everything began. He tries to recover the files from his research from a University computer lab, which he gets by posing as a pizza delivery guy and bribing a security guard (a fun cameo from Lou Ferrigno) with a pizza. Also in the lab is a nerd with no lines (but one great moment) played by Martin Starr, one of those guys I love to see in anything after Freaks and Geeks. Of course, the government has already taken care of the data, and he comes up empty.
This leads into Bruce meeting his old girlfriend, Betty Ross, who helped on the project that created the Hulk and is now seeing someone else (and who just happens to be General Ross's daughter, it turns out). He stays with her overnight (and, in a surprisingly refreshing twist, they don't end up sleeping together), but then it turns out the Army is on to him again (tipped off by Betty's significant other). Of course, this leads to another confrontation between the Hulk and the Army, this time in broad daylight in what must have been their equivalent of the Quad.
This time, the entire fight sequence is much less effective, I think. A big part of it is that the CGI is so obvious in this kind of a scene the the Hulk seems out of place, and unlike in Iron Man, as Chesnut pointed out, you never get to see the actual actors behind it. I'm pretty sure the helicopter gunship that comes in at the end is also CGI, which didn't help. There's also the problem that the Hulk is essentially invulnerable -- bullets don't hurt him, grenades don't hurt him, and even a gunship crashing into him doesn't hurt him, so there's not a lot of dramatic tension here. He's briefly subdued by some sort of sonic weapon, but even that doesn't last that long.
Blonsky, now pumped up on supersoldier serum, also doesn't really make for a credible threat. He may be a super special forces soldier now, but he's not going to wrestle the Hulk, and bullets don't do anything, grenades don't do anything -- so he ends up looking kind of impotent and crazy to just keep throwing himself at the Hulk (especially when he makes some crack about "is that all you've got!?"). It doesn't really come as any surprise when he gets thrown into a tree and smashed like tissue paper -- which, to be fair, is a surprisingly realistic turn here, but it doesn't do much for his character.
So the Hulk once again escapes, this time carrying Betty Ross, and once Bruce regains control they start heading towards New York, where Bruce has been in communication with another biologist since the beginning of the movie, the two of them trying to find a solution to his problem. This leads to an amusing scene where Betty brings back some clothes for Bruce to wear and includes a pair of stretchy purple shorts, which Bruce declines to take. Eventually, they get into New York and we find out that the doctor there has been using the blood Bruce sent him to culture tons more -- a treasure trove of Hulk serum, it seems. Stearns, the doctor in New York, and Betty also successfully manage to stop one of Bruce's hulking out incidents with an antidote Stearns has come up with. In contrast to the full-on Hulk fight sequences, the CGI during this particular scene works very well, I think because it only distorts Norton instead of replacing him, and because it has plenty of real scenery to interact with.
Of course, the Army is on to him again (thanks to the ECHELON-esque surveillance of SHIELD), and while Bruce is explaining to Stearns why they need to destroy all of the blood, Stearns and Banner get tranqed. Banner and Ross are taken away by the Army, while Stearns is questioned by an Army major. Then we have Blonsky come up, knock her out, and begin demanding that Stearns pump him up with Hulk serum.
Blonsky has definitely been getting nuttier and nuttier, but his demand to Stearns that he get pumped up with Hulk juice seems a little out there. I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish; he already knows that it turns you into an inhuman monster, which doesn't really come across as something he's really interested in -- so why's he do it? I didn't quite understand the weird bulging in Stearns' head when Blonsky breaks out during his transformation either, though from reading Wikipedia pages after the fact it looks like this might be a setup for the Leader to be the adversary in the sequel (though the comic character's background and the movie character's background are obviously very different). Anyway, Blonsky changes into Evil Hulk, or the Abomination, or whatever you want to call it, and that leads to fight that rages across Harlem between him and the Hulk.
The fight is decent enough, I guess, but I have to agree with Chesnut that it really looks a lot worse than the fight between Iron Man and Iron Monger in Iron Man; I think this comes down to the fact that pretty much everything we see is CGI, and that there's nothing that grounds the fight in the real world. Unlike in Iron Man, we don't get to see any reaction shots of the actor's faces, or anything but real animal instincts from either of the two combatants, so it sort of takes you out of the movie, unfortunately. This may be unavoidable with the Hulk, but it's a pitfall nevertheless.
One other thing that has sort of struck me after watching Batman Begins yesterday with Marc, is that this movie seems to remarkably devoid of the humor that seems to be a trademark of most superhero films. Even Batman Begins, which I think is one of the darkest and grittiest superhero movies I've seen (and also one of the best) has a lot of banter and quips that cut the tension, but for the life of me, I can only remember a couple of those sorts of lines in the Incredible Hulk (one being the subway line from the trailer). That kind of drags this movie down and makes it a little less fun to watch, which I think is to its detriment.
All in all though, the movie isn't bad, and worth seeing at least at a matinee, but I think the Avengers movie that they are definitely telegraphing (with Robert Downey Jr. showing up in the coda as Tony Stark to talk to General Ross about "a team we're putting together") will actually be a stronger venue for the Hulk than a movie all about the Hulk, since it gives the Hulk more of a chance to interact with non-CGI friends and enemies.
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I think you make a really good point regarding the Hulk as a movie character in general: while it didn't really work with him as the focus of attention in this movie (and I think I thought this more strongly than you did), it might work out much better with the Hulk as part of an ensemble cast. Especially if Iron Man is going to be a part of the Avengers movie (which it certainly sounds like is going to be the case), then I think the Hulk might be balanced out much better. I still can't stand the way he looks when interacting with real characters, though; I just think the producers and sfx people are getting too far ahead of themselves in terms of what they'd like to be able to do vs. what is actually feasible to do in a believable way with today's technology. This movie certainly isn't alone in making this mistake--it's common place these days, unfortunately. I just think it's an industry-wide epidemic that really needs to be resolved soon.