Miscast and formulaic

Rating: 5/10 (19 September 2008)

A lazy, formulaic mess of a superhero film. It's not a patch on "Iron Man" which was Marvel's first "in house" production, and it suffers terribly when compared to that offering. When the standout sequence is a rehash of the rooftop scene already done (and to much better effect) in Bourne Ultimatum you know you're in trouble. Ed Norton is, unfortunately, totally miscast in this take on Bruce Banner. He's far too bland to command leading man status. The action scenes are tired and lifeless, with poor fire FX and some terrible "eye line" work on the CGI. Only the end scene fight between The Hulk and The Abomination look vaguely convincing. And it's the sort of fight scene that we've seen endless times before in other, better superhero movies.