A mediocre, mindless, dumb -though entertaining- action flic....with spotty CGI

Rating: 4/10 (24 November 2018)

One of my favorite T.V. shows of all time, is '1970s-'1980s "The Incredible Hulk" -starring the very underrated actor, Bill Bixby and his alter-ego........the renowned body-builder Lou Ferrigno.
This T.V. show's 2-hour pilot episode was very, interesting, superbly-well done, and very dramatic: Bixby -otherwise known as 'David Banner'- was involved in a car accident in which he was unable to save his wife from dying (if my 'recall' is correct). In his frustration to his wife's death, Bixby then begins experimenting with small doses of gamma ray doses to see if it will stimulate a natural 'adrenalin reaction' -the type of reaction that he LACKED at the time that he felt he SHOULD HAVE HAD IT when he was unable to save his wife's life.
These controlled experiments eventually go awry....and Bixby in one freak accident of this controlled experiment transforms into the hulk, inadvertedly creating a fire which accidentally kills his colleague who was assisting him. I believe that Bill Bixby was born to play this role as the Hulk, and he plays it superbly; he is extremely likeable, charismatic, and it is very easy to empathize for him. He truly does come across as someone that is genuinely good......who is extremely tortured, always looking for a 'cure' to his dilemma...
Having never read any Marvel Comics of any type throughout my life -which is still currently the case- my knowledge and interpretations of what The Incredible Hulk is 'SUPPOSED' to closely resemble have always been based on the original '70s-80s T.V. series.
About 5 years ago, I 'attempted' to watch fairly new Louis Leterrier-directed "The Incredible Hulk" movie -starring Edward Norton. I gave up after only about 10 minutes, as I realized that it was in VERY STARK CONTRADICTION to the T.V. series and my notion of what the Incredible Hulk is supposed to be like.....that is,MUCH, MUCH, MUCH 'DUMBER' and purely action-oriented and grotesquely fake and stupid compared to the T.V. series.
That being said, very recently, I decided to give it one last 'go'.......and I finally just now -as I had nothing better to do- did watch in its entirety the Leterrier-directed "The Incredible Hulk."
In recent years, some of the best 'superhero' movies ever.....have been made.....partly as a result of the directors having the knowledge and incentive to fully show the superhero's 'character development' in a very thorough, engrossing, and realistic approach that has never been done in the past: For example, the Christopher Nolan-directed "Batman Begins" is easily the best Batman-directed movie ever, in my opinion; Batman's 'beginnings' are fully explained and very believably-developed in this film. To a great degree, this also applies to the movie "Spiderman" starring Tobey Maguire and the first "X-Men" movie starring Patrick Stewart.
In contradistinction, the movie 'The Incredible Hulk' begins very 'unintelligibly' with little or no character development concerning Bruce Banner's beginnings or how he became the Hulk. The movie begins with a drop of his blood accidentally falling into a soda bottle or something similar to that. Somewhat later the military is actively seeking him. He then transforms into the Hulk.
"The Incredible Hulk" pretty much is a pure mindless action movie which is centered on action sequences; nearly all of which are extremely unrealistic. The actual CGI used to create the Hulk's appearance is appallingly-fake....it is probably the MOST FAKE LOOKING 'humanoid' or 'monster' replication that I have EVER seen in ANY movie, EVER. It is absurdly-faked; grotesquely-fake. It is very possible that the actual APPEARANCE of the Hulk in this film -IS a much more accurate physical rendition of what the Hulk is SUPPOSED to look like than what he does in the T.V. series. It is also possible that in the D.C. Comics, that the Hulk is supposed to be utterly-invincible, unbelievably 'GARGANTUAN' (18 foot tall/several tons?), that he can take any amount of bullets from any type of gun or cannon, can leap DOZENS of feet in the air, and can free-fall 20,000 feet from a helicopter and not even break a bone.
The end result -whether this is an accurate D.C. Comics-replication or not- is a LUDICROUSLY-fake and stupid movie that maybe should have been 'animated' -as it is much more like a bona fida 'CARTOON' than anything that has any remote realism.
All in all, I rate "The Incredible Hulk" 4 stars -- because it does succeed, to an extent, as a dumb, pure action movie.....