Pretty dang Good movie.

Rating: 7/10 (11 June 2008)

To steal a line from a man of infinite wisdom, Welcome True Believers, to another exciting Kingdom Heartless review! Alright then! Time for what is essentially my first review of any relevance to current times. And I'm more than happy to be able to do it on a summer superhero movie. Before the real review gets under way, there are some things that need to be cleared up. Firstly, I don't mind Ang Lee's Hulk movie of 2003. When I first saw it I didn't particularly enjoy the movie, but on subsequent viewing I found appreciation for it. Secondly, my knowledge of the Hulk comics and such is far from perfect. I have a few comics floating around and I've read a few from libraries, but I am by no means an expert on the subject. So I guess you could call this a review from a semi-amateur. And Lastly, I am a simple man child. Put a lot of action and fun in a movie and I will be happy. This is evident from my love of movies like Transformers and X-Men: The Last Stand. Alright, now that we have those details out of the way, Let's Get Green. (Yep, I went there.)
I will start off by saying that the general opinion of this movies could really go either way. I'm not a very good judge with this sort of stuff. You could hate it. Myself, I enjoyed it quite a bit. No, it wasn't a perfect movie by any standard, but I still enjoyed it a great deal, and it's been added to my mental list of DVDs to be purchased. But it does appear like a movie that will have mixed reception. And I plan to give a few reasons why soon enough.
A big worry people seem to have with this movie is the CGI. To me, this was not a problem at all. It seems they have gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure that he did not look as cartoony as Ang Lee's Hulk did, and in that respect I feel they succeeded greatly. The detail of his facial expressions and body tone were done very well, and he didn't look as fake as some CGI does. The Abomination looked pretty damn awesome as well. But it's clear that there will be people who want to hate on the CGI. And as I was hoping for in the movie, there was enough explosions and missiles flying around and such to make Michael Bay wet himself. As stated above, simple mind to please. Also, this is no way like a sequel. I wouldn't think of it that way in the least. It is completely different in terms of background and such.
Edward Norton played his role pretty well. In fact the acting was pretty good all around, with solid performances from William Hurt and Tim Roth. And I will be honest, I thought Liv Tyler was great, and I know how much people like hating on her. I thought she was charming. I also thought Hulk's mindless roaring and stuff was cool. Heh. Of course there was a couple of cheesy jokes and self references, as we should all have come to expect from Marvel movies, but all of them were genuinely amusing and didn't distract from the story at all. I did notice at times, there was some weird camera shots that changed into another angle and just seemed a little off, in terms of timing.
The human side of the story was pretty good, albeit with a few pacing problems at times, but nothing to get Hulky about. The action scenes were really cool. Lots of Hulk randomly tearing things apart and causing carnage. I did notice some problems with some of the action being over when it just seemed to be getting revved up. Maybe it's just that I heard some different information regarding lengths. And similar to the earlier summer hit, Iron Man, the main villain didn't really seem to get as much screen time as expected.
I would also like to mention I enjoyed the score, and would like to note the presence of the original somber theme. Cool little thing for people who were fans of the original show.
All in all this was a largely enjoyable movie for me, and I'm hoping other people are able to enjoy it as well. The action scenes should be pleasing to most people at least. It's not the best Marvel movie for sure, but it is up there with the better ones. I'd like to give this movie about a 8.5 rating out of 10, and recommend you see this one at the cinemas. Well worth shelling out ten bucks to see.
Also, I would like to mention that people who whine about how illogical Bruce Banner's pants are can be quiet now. It doesn't go unexplained in the movie. All is well in the world.