The Incredible Hulk (2008) **

Rating: 5/10 (5 July 2008)

** out of ****
Laying my cards right out on the table here, I have long been a big fan of "THE INCREDIBLE HULK" -- the comic book, I mean; not the old Bill Bixby TV show (which didn't get the comics right), and I'll pull no punches in stating that I hated the other HULK film (by Ang Lee) which was released only a few years back. So it was only fitting that a second attempt was made to try and capture a more respectable representation of Marvel's iconic "Green Goliath". The results here are a little better, but that's still not saying much because it too misses the essence of the original comic book character. It all boils down to a matter of personal preference, and it seems that Hollywood is trying to satiate the expectations of those who grew up with the Bill Bixby variety of Hulkiness from the TV series. Which means that we get "ol' Jade-Jaws" as little more than an angry, roaring, enraged monster. It's a tragedy that filmmakers overlook the potential of the original Hulk comic character, who actually articulated with speech and therefore was able to come across as a more sympathetic, albeit child-like, character. There's more to the Hulk than just going "RRRAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!".
Edward Norton is physically a good choice to play a rather dweeby-looking Bruce Banner, if we're reflecting back to the old comic books (though we're not with this movie ... at least not very much). His love interest, Betty Ross, is also well-cast in Liv Tyler. She doesn't have much to do in the movie but that's okay since Betty was a nothing character in the comics as well. William Hurt is a pretty good Thunderbolt Ross, Betty's father and the General who's out to capture the Hulk ... though in the film he's way too villainous for his own evil purposes, where in the comics he was mostly apprehending Greenskin for the good of his country and to protect his daughter.
One of Hulk's most enduring adversaries turns up in this new movie, The Abomination. There's not much to say about Tim Roth, who plays the human side of this creature until he later becomes a computer generated figure (along with the cartoony Hulk). These two titans get to clash, but it's all CGI fisticuffs, and now's as good a time as any to address this current cinematic problem. Why this reliance on computer animated characters when an actor could work out nicely, and appear more real? Lou Ferrigno might have looked funny 30 years ago in green body makeup, but prosthetics have come a long way since that time. As originally conceived, The Hulk need not be as humongous in size as these movies make him out to be (the original comics have him at only 7 feet), so he's not much bigger than The Thing from the Fantastic Four. They had the right idea in those FF films by having The Thing played by a real actor in a body suit. So they could have found an actor large enough to play The Hulk, and then perhaps CG-tweaked him a little, if he's to be larger.
But ultimately, the cartoonishness of the Hulk and The Abomination is not what topples this house of cards anyway. It's because this feels like just an "average" comic book film, without much of a story and not enough of the Hulk as a communicative lost soul. Think of the lonely speaking Frankenstein monster from BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN... this is the type of Hulk a movie of this type needs. I will say that, at the very least, THE INCREDIBLE HULK manages to provide its star with a few words... the patented "Hulk Smash!!" and maybe one other, from what I remember. And there ARE brief moments where we do sense a twinge of sympathy and come to care about this green galoot... just a tiny bit. It was a hint of what could have been, had anyone in charge considered that there is more potential for this character than they think. ** out of ****