A Film with Issues--But Fun Nonetheless

Rating: 7/10 (16 January 2015)

If you know anything about Marvel Comics' ongoing drama over its licenses with its characters that it leased out to various production companies at the turn of the century before creating its own movie studio, then you will understand a bit about the strange way in which "The Incredible Hulk" movie was scripted.
In 2003, a Universal Pictures film directed by Ang Lee and called simply, "Hulk", was released to mixed reviews. I personally enjoyed that movie, though some say it suffered from some creative cinematography that tried a bit too hard to be like a comic book.
Whatever the case, five years later, Marvel Comics had founded its own movie production studio and was looking to start its own film sequence in which various characters could cross over into each others' films, i.e. the "Marvel Cinematic Universe". For reasons both creative and proprietary, this required a fresh start, which led to a "reboot" of the Hulk franchise.
And yet, in the case of the Hulk, the basic origin story had been told just five years before hand, and it didn't make much sense to remake that same movie. And so, a "loose sequel" was devised in which the audience could assume that the basic gist of the information that they remembered from the 2003 "Hulk" carried over into this movie, despite its having a totally different (and in my view inferior) cast. Eric Bana was replaced by Edward Norton; Jennifer Connelly became Liv Tyler; and the most regrettable replacement of all, Sam Elliott's spot on depiction of General "Thunderbolt" Ross became.......some random actor who I have no idea what his name is and don't even want to take the time to look it up right now because he wasn't very good in the role.
At any rate, the 2008 "Incredible Hulk" movie is perhaps the weakest film in the MCU lineup. It is an attempt at making the Hulk story fit into the larger narrative of the MCU, which it does by retconning the origin story so that the gamma ray experiments that led to Banner's transformation were the result of army experiments that were attempts at rejuvenating a "Super Soldier" program from World War II. In other words, the Hulk was a failed attempt at making an army of Captain Americas.
Whatever one makes of that, the story itself isn't terribly bad. What makes the film somewhat hard to watch, though, is the acting, and one can only assume that that also means that the film was poorly directed as well. Edward Norton is a great actor--but go watch his portrayal of Bruce Banner, and you'll find that Norton is no Bill Bixby. His dialogue is stiff and forced. He carries little emotion, even when becoming angry enough to transform into an 800 pound green monster. The whole role just felt very mismatched.
Tim Roth's performance doesn't shine very well, either. One can only imagine why a man with a British accent is in the U.S. Army. But even after you get past that, Roth's portrayal of a villain is a hyperbole, even for the comics genre.
The same can be said for Liv Tyler, who is gorgeous but rigid in this film. Aside from one brief moment where she yells at an NYC cab driver, there's not a lot of dynamism in her portrayal of Betty Ross. And as for her father, well, see my comment above.
None of these people are poor actors, which again draws into question the directorial skills in this film.
And yet despite all of the flawed, unemotional acting, this movie is still enjoyable to watch. The CGI Hulk is amazing, and the battle between the Hulk and the Abomination is fun. As such, in spite of the peculiarity of its being a "loose sequel" and in spite of lackluster performances, "The Incredible Hulk" is still worthy of 7/10 stars. It has its issues, but it's nonetheless a good movie overall.