Questionable Re-Reboot is a Hulk-Sized Leap Backwards

Rating: 2/10 (11 September 2011)

There ought to be a law for relaunches of a franchise less than five years after the last attempt: every negative must be destroyed if it winds up being even worse. From start to finish, this was a total mess of a film that seemed more interested in finding room for not-so-subtle cameos and wink-nudge-grins than telling a functional story. Knocking out the Hulk's fabled origin story during the opening credits may have freed up the rest of the picture to explore new territory, but it also killed the basis of the cast's relationships and removed any reason for the audience to care about them. Ed Norton and Liv Tyler turn in genuinely rotten performances, with a black hole of chemistry as an on-screen duo, that are neither true to the original characters nor interesting in the slightest. Bruce Banner never comes off as remotely intelligent, let alone the super genius he'd have to be to come up with the formula that turned him into the Hulk, and actually spends more time running from grossly generic government operatives than using his brains. That effectively kills the intriguing contrast between he and the Hulk that should be fueling the story. Both characters are mindlessly running, just in opposite directions. Corny dialog, predictable twists and turns, weak CG, flat characterization and sleepwalking actors - this blew up in Marvel's face.