Getcha popcorn ready...HULK SMASH!

Rating: 9/10 (15 June 2008)

I suppose any review about a comic book movie must be preceded by a few disclaimers as to the reviewers objectivity. I've been a Hulk fan for more than 30 years, since I started wearing my first Hulk T-shirt at around age 5. I love the big green guy and all the angst and brooding and power and potential carnage he represents...especially knowing that somewhere deep within that poisoned, rippling, veiny interior is a sensitive soul struggling to stay attached to its compassion and humanity. I really liked Ang Lee's 2003 version but I absolutely LOVED this version! The other disclaimer would be that while I am just as fond of "thinking" movies like Schindler's List or Flags of our Fathers, I also freely embrace the "summer blockbuster" and am more than happy to check my brain at the door and munch away on m lapful of over-priced goodies while things blow up real good in front of me.
So with that, you already know my opinion of this newest rendition of The Incredible Hulk. The other reviews who have given this movie an 8-10 have pretty much said it all...so I am not going to elaborate on the awesome destruction scenes, the CGI (which I thought was incredibly well done and realistic), the dialogue or what have you. Quite simply I thought it was perhaps the greatest summer smash movie of all time (in a very elite group amongst T2, Jurassic Park, True Lies and Transformers).
Stepping away from my Hulk manlove for a moment, and trying to find some objectivity...I can let readers know that the movie is not without some technical flaws which, if you know in advance and can forgive the filmmakers for, it will likely enhance your enjoyment of the overall product. Some attempts to create humour or "classic memorable lines" in summer blockbusters do not always work, and the Hulk has its share of cheese that made me wince. For example, in trying to pay homage to the classic Bill Bixby TV series, Edward Norton's Bruce Banner (who is very weak in his Portuguese) says to a colleague in Brazil..."Don't make me...hungry...you wouldn't like me when I'm hungry!". Yes, I admit I laughed, but was secretly miffed at the openly cheap attempt to create humour from a classic line...because the part of my brain that I didn't check at the door realized that "faminto" and "zangado" don't sound enough alike that a person uttering a sentence in a newfound language simply wouldn't make that mistake. There were other examples as well of things that appeared to be created for the cheese-factor that simply would not happen in real life (or likely the comic book for that matter). Things like Bronsky saying to the Hulk "Is that all you got!?" when he wasn't yet quite sure that his body could withstand a massive beating and when any other mortal man would be crapping his pants...or as the Abomination speaking fluent English. Why could a man who only recently became the Abomination talk freely in his native tongue, while Banner has been the Hulk for years and finally took everything he had just to grunt "HULK SMASH!"?
And finally, the scene in the cave with the Hulk and Betty Ross. As a movie maker and a seller of comic books...you've just asked me to suspend all disbelief and accept that a giant green monster can withstand a barrage of 50-caliber shells bouncing off his chest like Nerf balls...but then you want me to believe that when he accidentally bumps his head in a cave it's going to hurt so much that he yells out in pain? Again, I understand the motives behind all this stuff...and it is funny, so the humour can be appreciated...it's just that it becomes "frying pan in the face" obvious to anybody watching this movie that it tries just a wee bit too hard to be all things to all people. But for 2 hours, it really does succeed in doing that. 9/ 10.