the jury is out

Rating: 6/10 (19 June 2008)

OK, start by forgetting Ang Lee's 2003 version of Hulk. As far as this movie is concerning that never existed and this is the one and only definitive version of Hulk (despite being also known as hulk 2).
Edward Norton is playing Bruce Banner (so Eric Bana is now confined to the annals of Hulk history and almost certainly doomed to be forgotten). This movie throws you right into the deep end having all the accident that turns Bruce into Hulk happen over the opening title credits as well as his running away, being chased by the authorities then going missing.
The last newspaper report says he hadn't been seen for 5 months. Bruce is hiding out in Brazil & we get our 1st nod back to the TV series when he sees Bill Bixby (Bruce Banner in the TV version of The Incredible Hulk) on TV in something, so their pleasing the hardcore Hulk fans pretty much right away.
Bruce is being taught by a martial arts instructor how to contain his anger by learning breathing techniques. We also get a joke about Banner's inability to full speak the local language when he mistakenly says "Don't make me hungry" because he doesn't know the right word for angry.
Stan Winston gets his standard cameo playing a man with gamma sickness infected after drinking a soda infected with Bruce's blood. This death alerts the military who send out a SEAL team plus Eric Blonsky (Tim Roth) on load from the Royal Marines so we're supposed to assume he's at least a Commando to capture Banner alive.
Banner goes Hulk in the Bottling Plant where he works having been chased there by bullies from his job after trying to avoid the SEAL team. Hulk is barely seen in this fight, even when Blonsky sees him its only for a few moments so they're sticking to the old tried & trusted adage that a creature looks better the less you see it.
After waking up in the jungle Banner discovers he has managed to travel from Brazil to Guatemala while he was Hulk. We also get another nod back to the TV series when they play the TV end title music as Banner is walking the streets in Mexico. He is also sold some purple trousers which is a nod back to the original Hulk comic strip.
He makes it back to America to Culver University where he's looking for Dr Elizabeth Ross (Liv Tyler) who we'd seen get injured during the Hulk accident in the opening titles. It was her father General Ross (William Hurt) who sent the SEAL team after Banner in Brazil. We get yet another nod to the TV series when Banner meets the night security guard (played by Lou Ferrigno, the original TV Hulk!). We get a flashback to the accident & it's practically the TV version stolen shot for shot replacing Bixby with Norton. There's a very huge plot goof that Betty has the lab data on a USB stick (most can hold 16 gig max?) but that she was able to get it at all seeing as she was very badly injured in a hospital bed you'd think the data would have been moved/deleted while she was out of commission?
The 2nd big Hulk fight sequence has him in clear view and the CGI model looks good (but I still think Ang Lee's Hulk looked better!), this battle appears to end in the death of Blomsky. I assume Hulk banging his head in the cave was thrown in for the children likely to be watching this? Way to make your hero seem like an idiot, I thought.
That scene in the rain with Betty was very reminiscent of the original Frankenstein movie where he plays with the little girl though. We're shown Blomsky was badly injured but survived being attacked by Hulk, he goes onto make a "miracle" recovery almost certainly thanks to whatever it was they had injected him with before the battle. We also get yet another nod to the TV series when they refer to student Jack McGee (the name of the reporter who constantly hounded Bruce Banner in the TV series) who is a reporter for the Culver campus newspaper.
Betty & Bruce decide to meet with Bruce's contact in New York, the mysterious Mr Blue who turns out to be Dr Stern to try and cure him which at the time does appear to have taken effect. We then get a bit of pseudo science explaining why Bruce didn't die of radiation sickness years ago.
Blomsky forces Stern to inject him with whatever had been removed from Banner & Blomsky becomes SOMETHING (you can't call it Abomination because it's never official named that. Stern only said Blomsky would become AN Abomination) that the Delta Force soldiers (how have they gone from being Navy SEALS to Delta Force?) mistakenly think is Hulk. In an attempt to stop whatever it is Blomsky has become, Banner jumps from a helicopter hoping he'll become Hulk. Which luckily for him he does as it'd have been awful to have ended the film with Banner as pavement pizza.
It's pretty clear from the start that the Blomsky beast is stronger than Hulk & their fight is pretty impressive but Hulk manages to defeat the Blomsky beast by choking him with a chain (where'd that come from, by the way? And did Hulk actually KILL Blomsky there?).
The ending is very weak, the Tony Stark (fron Iron Man) cameo is short & pointless. I hope this doesn't lead to a sequel.