A Review From A Former MCU Hater

Rating: 4/10 (9 January 2019)

The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Marvel Cinematic Universe #2
Director: Louis Leterrier
Right, after my fantastic time the other night rewatching the exceptional Iron Man, I have to say without any build up that this was a very dull, if not entirely disappointing, first time watch.
I get it. Ed Norton is the last person you'd expect to have a superpower. This should make his character relatable but it could also have made him an icon. But it didn't. After an absolutely mesmerising performance from Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man, I went into this expecting another really awesome powerhouse performance. What I actually got was a merely decent portrayal of a nice bloke who somehow (in a very rushed opening montage) has become afflicted with gamma ray poisoning that can turn him from looking like a janitor to Jason Momoa's angry uncle in a matter of minutes.
Now as for The Hulk himself, he is a force to be reckoned with and thankfully the scenes where (I assume it is still Norton via motion capture) he interacts with the love interest (Liv Tyler in a really subtle and affecting turn as Betty) as The Big Green are touching and oddly affecting in a way that Bruce Banner as himself isn't quite. The action sequences are mostly predictable but I felt they used a King Kong style template to help really get the audience involved (especially in the climactic final battle amongst the big city skyscrapers between two enraged Hulks). The end fight was not a patch on the final battle in Iron Man, but it's not for a want of trying. And the inventiveness during the fight on the college campus was terrific fun (although the flames that engulfed Hulk and Betty appeared to cause no damage to skin, hair or clothing and OF COURSE it rained heavily).
This isn't a bad movie, but after kicking off the MCU with a major bang, The Incredible Hulk fails to captivate in the same way. Liv Tyler stole the film for me, and I really wish we could have seen her acting alongside Mark Ruffalo here. It's a great shame to me that she doesn't appear later in the franchise, but it's fine. We end up with enough characters to compensate (and then some!). I won't criticise the special effects too much, only to say that we have come a long way since even 2008 in terms of full CGI rendering of characters in a live action setting. When we finally see The Hulk in all his glory he truly does give off a Roger Rabbit type vibe, of animation bursting into the real world, and it's jarring. It doesn't ruin the experience, but it did on occasion take me out of the moment. But I love Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man movie, and that too suffered similar issues.
This is not a great movie. It does everything a superhero movie should, and it does so in a rather pedestrian manner. It's fairly likeable, it certainly passes the time, and at the end when for a brief moment we see Tony Stark arrive to make some sort of deal, well, it became positively rousing. And that is my issue here, the best time I had watching this movie was the last minute with Tony Stark. Oh dear. As for the villian...I found him very forgettable. Next.
But I may watch this again. It was good, and coming out the same year as Iron Man leaves me with the impression that the director had little idea what the movie was going to follow. As a standalone movie, it's just fine. As the first sequel in a longstanding, multi-character lead franchise, it is a huge disappointment.
4/10