He traveled from where to where in just over two weeks!?!?!!?!?

Rating: 5/10 (14 June 2008)

It is never a good sign for a franchise to receive a reboot after just one installment. However, Hulk gets a second chance with the latest film from the Marvel team that has brought us this summer's biggest hit and best film thus farand that's an answer that shall not change by the end of this review. The Incredible Hulk handles just like a comic book: bad dialogue, plenty of action, massive-sized plot holes, plenty of cameos, and ends with us asking for more. The movie fails to really lift the franchise from the ashes of mediocrity as yet again we receive a sub par Hulk movie that fails to bring out the best in our green hero. Good acting and decent CGI is hampered by too many other errors, setbacks, and disappointments that turn Hulk into nothing more than an American version of Godzilla. Yes, there's more to Hulk than meets the eye, but Louis Leterrier and company fail to deliver this to us.
In a well-scripted prologue, we see Bruce Banner accidentally kill people and injure others after an experiment gone wrong; which we all know turns him into the Hulk. He hides in Brazil (Not the best place to hide if you are light-skinned, I know) as he tries to find a cure for his rage. While he hides and runs (In this movie, traveling from country to country and state to state on no money is no problem), the United States army is after him to use his accident and turn it into a successful innovation in warfare.
This isn't a continuation of the original Hulk, it's rather a refresher, or a reboot; in the sense of Batman Begins and Casino Royale. After the prologue, the dialogue goes downhill in a most awful way. Whether its lines that aren't supposed to deliver a laugh, to lines that should not have been said at all, there are a lot of cringe-worthy moments in Hulk just listening to people talk. The acting doesn't exactly help either, as only Tim Roth and Edward Norton pulling off respectable performances. The two actors are well-known for their versatility and breathing life into any role, and they are no exception here until the CGI gets mixed in.
While the trailers do promise action and more action, The Incredible Hulk is mostly running, hiding, talking, and preparation for the final act in the movie. The opening chase sequence is good; the rest of the action doesn't quite live up to it. When Banner becomes Hulk, it's like watching a very angry toddler wreck havoc on a town of Legos. Banner/Hulk just fails to have the charisma of Stark, the coolness of Batman, and the emotional depth of Peter Parker. Things get destroyed, and then Banner's love interest (pretty but meh Liv Tyler as Betty) stops the carnage; the formula doesn't quite change. Even the carnage itself becomes repetitive.
Hulk does lack the dimensions of a deep character, but it's hard to like the main character when he becomes the vicious being. Being able to calm down for only the love interest in the entire movie doesn't exactly garnish brownie points from the audience; luckily the audience wants to see epic fights and destruction to the nth degree (These people should not question the appeal of Godzilla).
Bottom Line: The Incredible Hulk is nothing like the Ang Lee version, but it still fails to live up to most Marvel comic book movies. There's so much that went wrong here, its hard to praise anything going on. Most of the acting is bland, the final fight isn't as epic as one would hope, and it lacks the fun of Iron Man. Perhaps this character was never meant to be in a movie; that or needs a strong supporting role to help him entertain the audience. Another major drawback is the amount of wicked cop-outs and sudden disappearances of supporting roles. Luckily the final scene gives us all hope, as we are seeing the beginning of something potentially awesome. In the meantime, we have to suck up another second-rate Hulk movie.
At least its no Batman and Robin.