The Incredible Hulk: getting closer to the mark

Rating: 8/10 (29 April 2009)

The Incredible Hulk gets the franchise a step closer to what it should be. It gave us a good story and plenty of highs and lows. The pluses to this film were the addition of Edward Norton and his discerning taste in the roles he chooses, the switching of the Betty Ross character from Jennifer Connolly to Liv Tyler (her and Norton have great on-screen chemistry) and a well-rounded story. In contrast to the positive aspects, the biggest disappointment was the poorly developed character development of Emil Blonsky a.k.a. The Abomination. A potentially formidable opponent, the talent of actor Tim Roth was downplayed and the character was reduced to a military thug comparable to a schoolyard bully. He spends most of the movie talking about fighting. A less important disappointment was the "cure" which is built up for 3/4s of the movie and then works when Banner wants it to and stops when he doesn't. In general, a good movie with a few loose screws that needed to be tightened.