Green Cheese

Rating: 7/10 (22 June 2008)

The first Hulk movie was a major disappointment. Ang Lee is a great director, but he fundamentally misunderstood the character. The Hulk is not about Bruce Banner's unresolved Freudian conflicts with his father. Nor is it about fighting giant, gamma-irradiated French poodles.
Now along comes Hulk 2.0. Director Louis Leterrier and writer Zak Penn don't have Lee's talent or budget, but have created a more enjoyable, albeit cheesier, movie by sticking closer to the source material. Watch for cameos by Stan Lee, Lou Ferrigno, Bill Bixby, and Robert Downey Jr. in his Tony Stark role.
The first half of the movie works best: after an efficient opening sequence that gets the origin out of the way, we switch to Bruce Banner as a super powered fugitive, on the run from the US Army, and hiding out in São Paulo. (A nod to the first movie, which ended with Banner hiding in Latin America.) Ed Norton looks sufficiently haunted and emaciated to make this work. The Hulk is wisely kept in shadow and only shown in bits and pieces.
The second half of the movie starts showing some cracks. The Hulk doesn't look like Shrek this time, but he still doesn't look believable. Maybe it's impossible for CGI to render a nine foot tall, two ton green giant convincingly. Worse, the personal conflictsBanner with Betty Ross; Betty with her father, General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross; the General with Bannerfeel perfunctory, as if Leterrier and Penn are just filling time until the final throwdown with the Abomination. Here, they could have learned a thing or two from Lee, who excels at personal conflict.