marvelous Marvel

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2009)

With "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk", Marvel has finally arrived at a top form of the superhero movie. Granted, as Roger Ebert noted, that its themes are not as multi-layered as the Ang Lee version, nor its characters as complex and ambivalent (Bruce Banner: "When it happens, when it comes over me, when I totally lose control  I like it."), I still prefer this Hulk incarnation precisely because it does not take itself too seriously, and simply delivers a popcorn movie with a tight plot, wit and humor, and, dare I say, ample CGI whizz-bang.
Critics who complain about the lack of investment in meaning and psychology have obviously not read comic books. Not that such works are deficient in meaning, rather, they generate it differently, than say the realism of 19th century novels. Comic books do not aspire to realism, but rather to formula and stereotyping (cartoon), much like soap operas. They are most effective when their audience recognize the class of forms they are citing: "this is the part where the bad guy gets his just desserts", and exactly how he gets ithow the premise was set up and the story cleverly toldis what makes or brakes the deal.
This is precisely my frustration with the first two X-men moviesthey were too solemn, too much trying to make a point, too busy filling their cup with meaning extraneous to propelling the narrative. They felt too held-back, saddled, as if reluctant in being superhero movies. "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk", on the other hand, joyfully embraced the genre, dropped all pretensions of meaning, and delivered the comic book goods.
(This review also appeared in stickslip.wordpress.com as "'The Incredible Hulk': Marvelous Marvel")