Big budget wrestling movie not my drop of poison

Rating: 4/10 (1 July 2008)

A wrestling movie with a green guy gets boring after a while; I guess that's why the brainiacs at the studio hired Edward Norton to play the wrestler in the non-wrestling scenes. A film version of the Lou Ferrigno- and Bill Bixby-starring TV series, this is a reasonable waste of time that outstays its welcome once the wrestling takes over. Norton, a troubled fellow who's carrying a dangerous chemical in his blood, is hiding in Brazil from government agents who want to use him as a weapon. As you already know, when he gets angry he gets violent. He starts throwing stuff around and deflecting bullets. When the government, personified by William Hurt, learns of Norton's whereabouts, they ambush his hideout and shoot lots of bullets that get deflected. Tim Roth, a professional soldier, is brought in as a secret weapon who also likes to wrestle and cause mayhem; only difference is, he's bigger and uglier. Like most Marvel material, this is predictable and inspired by a thousand other stories. The climactic showdown is just another video game featuring violent pounding and mass destruction. Having decent actors in clichÃ©d parts adds credibility, I guess, to this bloated, overproduced exercise, but it just felt like lots of noise to me. "Iron Man" was much better, relatively speaking.