Flounders On Film

“This summer, our only hope is something incredible”

 

After the blinding success of Iron Man and The Dark Knight (only the fourth film to break the billion-dollar mark let us not forget) in the summer of 2008, there did not seem to be any attention or love left for the big green guy arriving late on in the summer. Financially it did fine, but the critical reception was lukewarm at best.

 

Now, this may be in part to the fact that in 2003 there was another Hulk film (you may have heard of it) called simply “Hulk” – see, ours is already better (it has a better name). People may have been confused – is it a sequel? – or simply bored – seen it all before. But more than that, it was rubbish. You can talk all day about the quality of Eric Bana’s performance or Ang Lee’s composition quality (it looks just like comic book panels apparently), but it is criminally, unforgivably dull.      

 

  

And people at the time were not afraid to acknowledge this. Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly stated, “a big-budget comic-book adaptation has rarely felt so humourless and intellectually defensive about its own pulpy roots” and this just about sums it up for me. Batman (recently) is massively dark but it gets around the problem by being completely badass. I’d love to intellectualise it more, but The Dark Knight, especially, rocks in a way that a big green guy smashing shit up really should, but somehow fails to.     

 

But then something happened with the 2008 “re-boot” (not a good phrase, but you can’t really class it as a sequel). Suddenly, having a Hulk with humour and action (one that rocks a bit, basically) wasn’t good enough anymore. Oh no, we liked the old boring one. Honest. “The Incredible Hulk” is no doubt an ideal version of the Hulk saga for those who found Ang Lee’s “Hulk” too talky, or dare I say, too thoughtful says Roger Ebert in one of his snottier sentences in a review that basically compares the two instead of reviewing the new one.

 

The Incredible Hulk gave everyone a chance to try and look clever and a hell of a lot of people took that chance. “Hollywood dumbing down again; just typical!” was the common response. If the new Hulk was a KFC, the previous version was Coq au Vin and only the right kind of people could appreciate it. Well, I disagree.

 

Hulk 2003 – the trailer had Eric Bana snarling “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” – one of the classic superhero (I know the Hulk isn’t really a superhero, but you get the idea) catchphrases. It was cut from the final film. They were embarrassed by the history of the character.

 

The Incredible Hulk 2008 – Bruce Banner, struggling with his newly acquired Spanish linguistic skills tells the men threatening him: “Don’t make me hungry. You would like me when I’m hungry”. I know which I prefer.  

 

Personally, I love Edward Norton so I always going to prefer him in the role of Bruce Banner. Eric Bana was perfectly fine too, but he’s never been in Fight Club so balls to him. Norton is always good at playing clever people (as he’s pretty smart himself), but he doesn’t often get to play nice, decent people and this is what I really enjoyed about his performance. He is convincing as a smart (too smart) young scientist who doesn’t realise just how close to the flame his hand is getting until it’s too late and his Frankenstein’s Monster is unleashed within himself. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, but his genius-sized brain was simply more active than his common sense and the punishment he now receives (from the government he was trying to assist) far outweighs any crime he commits.

 

 

 

I stated before that it’s not a sequel and it’s not, but I would’ve quite liked Sam Elliott and Jennifer Connelly to reprise their roles as General ‘Thunder’ Ross and Betty Ross, if only to provide some continuity with a prior film only five years old. Maybe a clean break was best for all though and Liv Tyler is undeniably lovely as Betty. William Hurt, too, is entertainingly fierce as the General, especially when telling Bruce, “if you’ve taken it from me, I’ll put you in a hole for the rest of your life”. This is one of my favourite moments in the film. Hurt is very much in the middle of a second wind, jump-started not least by his Oscar-nominated ‘A History of Violence’ turn and he’s just fine in the role of bad man who believes he’s doing good.

 

The film really excels in the introduction of The Abomination, however, and this is where it improves vastly on its predecessor. The first film didn’t know who to fight against. Hulk is the good guy, obviously, but not really. He smashes things up and doesn’t really help people. The army is the villain, but Hulk could crush them with his little toe, so this doesn’t really work dramatically. Hulk 2003 falls into a dramatic black hole having Hulk fight something like, er; his father, (who gave Bruce his Hulk-ness accidently) now super-powered by electricity wants to be the Hulk, but Bruce won’t let him so they fight and then get blown up by the army’s gamma bomb…or do they? My explanation makes far more sense than the film itself.

 

Hulk 2008 keeps things far clearer and more satisfying. Banner is on the run (like in the TV show) and trying to keep out of everyone’s way and off the radar. The army make a major balls-up by creating The Abomination and so Hulk is needed to save the day, as the only thing that stands a chance against something worse (and bigger) than himself. This is far better.

  

This final mash-up is a thing of wonder (like super-sized Spiderman versus Doctor Octopus) and comes after several excellent action set pieces (turning the college campus into a battle field is probably my own favourite with Tim Roth running round like a Duracell bunny) and lots of well-handled humour and cute touches in the rest of the running time. This is best exemplified in Betty and Bruce’s re-growing affection whilst on the run, and not least in their abortive attempt at sex. 

 

Maybe it never stood a chance. In an excellent summer for comic books and coming so soon after an unloved ‘prequel’, The Incredible Hulk was possibly always destined for a reaction of ‘meh’.  Its reputation may be restored with the growth of the Avengers franchise. But, before that, look again and you’ll see a film with more heart than Iron Man, one that is more nimble on its feet than The Dark Knight and one that is certainly better-suited to the material than Hulk 2003. Try it. You might like it when he’s angry.