The Incredible Hunger

Rating: 5/10 (4 May 2013)

Here's another movie I'll add to my "I wanted to like more and, yet, continuously watch it" film list.
By leaps and bounds, The Incredible Hulk (2008) is better than the Ang Lee's Hulk movie five years prior. But, it's still not great.
The biggest problem I found was that the cast was in reverse. I loved the entire cast of the first movie, but thought the movie was so-so. Here, I disliked each choice for the well-known to the Hulk universe characters and wished they were swapped. At least, they got brave and smart enough to replace Bruce Banner, yet again, with Mark Ruffalo in The Avengers.
I used to appreciate Edward Norton. I loved him in Fight Club, Rounders and American History X. But, the last two adaptations he took over, The Incredible Hulk and Red Dragon, he stunk. And bad.
Oh, well. I try and get past him and Liv Tyler's lips, the ho-hum Tim Roth and misplaced (and normally great, himself) William Hurt. When I do move on from those bad choices, along with the wide-open plot holes, I can enjoy the movie.
As I grew up on the Bill Bixby TV series and not the comics, I enjoy the obvious and welcomed TV series tie-ins. Such as: the theme song used, the reporter (note: his name) filming the outdoor University fight, Bixby on the tele, the exciting opening credit scene, the signature lines – albeit humoritized and of course, Lou Ferrigno's (second movie-Hulk) cameo. I enjoyed the HULK-OUT scenes a lot and most importantly, I loved the video-game ending. This is coming from someone who plays very few video games, but did play to completion: The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction on Xbox. The finale to this movie was almost verbatim the game and that was so much fun to watch on the big screen.
After a rebooted look on how Dr. Bruce David Banner became the Hulk – so, FORGET the original 2003 movie, Banner's on the run and eventually, though questionably and unrealistically, comes "home" to the USA in order to try and find a cure to his green alter-ego. Meanwhile, a military man wants to be the next super soldier and a great match to meet up with Hulk for theULTIMATE DESTRUCTION in NYC.
This movie is NOT terrible by any means. It's pretty cool on how it ties in with the eventual Avengers mythos, years later and its special effects trump the previous movie. In addition, it's refreshing he doesn't grow to 6-stories in this installment.
And even though they got the Hulk right even more in The Avengers, to date, 2013, they had very good special effects for the Hulk.
Now, my gripes: I want to see less drama and more Hulk-outs. I want to see the Hulk change more. I want to see less dark scenes with the Hulk than trying to cover him up.
Yes, I know they (probably mostly from Norton, from what I've read) wanted a more realistic and dramatic approach. Damnit, please just treat a superhero film like a superhero film and leave the art house crap for independent films.
That all said, it's still enjoyable, when Hulk is on screen, especially the mid-daylight scene and the fantastic finale. (Though, what was with Betty stopping the killing? Finish him! Okay, okay, that was one of the plot holes)