Not a brilliant film but a big enjoyable blockbuster without any pretensions to greatness

Rating: Null/10 (15 October 2008)

Dr David Banner is hiding out in Brazil having fled the military unit led by General Ross who wish to study his genetic mutation and utilise it to create a race of super soldiers. Banner continues his studies into a possible cure for his condition with the discrete help of the mysterious scientist Mr Blue. A slip up in the bottling plant that Banner works alerts Ross to his presence and in goes a small unit led by Major Blonsky to tranquilise him and take him into custody. However when Blonsky and his men trap Banner in the plant, Banner's pulse races and soon Blonsky learns firsthand why Banner is such an important asset to Ross.
The Incredible Hulk was sold as more of a blockbuster experience than the Ang Lee film was and from the very start this approach is laid out in the rapid back story in the credits. This continues across the whole film with some good sequences, comic book references for the fans and plenty of impressive special effects. What that does for you will depend on you but for my money it produced a solid summer blockbuster which is much like Iron Man in construction  ie it doesn't pretend to have "substance" or complexity in the way the Batman franchise reboot does. Instead it is all about the basic blocks that make up the film and delivering those in a way that is fun without being too demanding or too complex. Hulk delivers on this and has plenty of good action that are greatly helped by the effects being very good indeed, with the decisions made about the look and size of the Hulk working to stop it being silly. Without a doubt it is a "money up there on the screen" sort of affair.
Having said that though, essentially this does mean that the film comes down to big computer effects hitting one another with New York City taking its traditional summer-time pasting and it did make me wonder about Norton's involvement. I respect him a lot as an actor and his scenes do appear to suggest that he sees more in the material than comes across on the screen. As it is he must have spent more of his time doing motion capture than doing on-screen acting and while his presence suggests that he has ideas of depth, nothing worthy of him is forthcoming. The opposite is true of Tyler, who is perfect for this material-light film but is not still that impressive. Roth was a strange bit of casting but he works in his character and is convincing in his transformation. Hurt and Nelson are both good additions who I assume more will come from. The cameos are not too obtrusive (although why can't Stan Lee do more of background cameo) and it is really hard for me to fault a film that gives a bit of time for Williams  who even in "normal" clothes as he was here will always be Omar from The Wire.
The Incredible Hulk is not a particularly dark or interesting film but, like Iron Man it is a fun and energetic comic-book film with good effects, good action and a general sense of good humour running through it. It won't blow you away outside of the realms of being a summer blockbuster but for what it does it is a perfectly enjoyable film.