Does a bigger Hulk make for a better movie?

Rating: 6/10 (14 June 2008)

Edward Norton not only stars as Bruce Banner but pulls double duty as screenwriter, picking up where Zak Penn left off. Norton boasts being a Marvel kid while growing up and says he always loved the mythic dimension and contemporary themes of the Hulk. He also claims to be well versed on the original TV series, a nod I was hoping hinted towards a movie driven by character development, as opposed to (what Penn's work has previously exhibited) large scale spectacles of action.
The film's opening credit sequence establishes ties to the TV series by replicating Banner's gamma ray accident, utilizing identical equipment and a few signature shots. Later on we're even treated to a cameo from Lou Ferrigno (who also voices this version of the Hulk), but once we jump into Banner's current situation as a fugitive hiding out in a Brazilian favela, the divide between the TV series and the movie starts to widen.
Before long, General Ross (William Hurt) has caught a whiff of Banner's scent and dispatches a commando team led by über-soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) to capture the outlaw scientist. Banner's concentrated efforts (meditation, jiu-jitsu) to keep the beast within from rearing its big, ugly, green head are wasted when the commando's push become a vicious shove in the darkened bowels of a Brazilian pop bottling plant. From the shadows, the Hulk emerges and shatters nearly everyone and everything around him including any potential for realism this movie may have had.
Once the cartoony Hulk emerges, it displaces Banner's tortured struggle for normalcy as the focal point of the movie. That's not to say Norton doesn't get his share of screen time, but by the time the third act rolls around and Roth's English accented Russian soldier morphs into a hulk-like beast of his own, very little happens aside from things being smashed, blown up and punched at for the remainder of the movie. I might have even enjoyed all this mayhem if it didn't all look so incredibly animated, which (of course) it was.
When you get to a point where you feel like you're watching a video game instead of a movie, there seems to be a disconnect. At this point, the characters you've been asked to invest into are bankrupted and the movie loses whatever potential it had to connect on any profound or engaging levels.
Once the CG trumps the real world, I wondered if, despite its campiness, the Lou Ferrigno Hulk was a better alternative to the big-budget, physics defying cartoon Hulk before me now? There's no question the 70's series suffers from its campiness and budgetary constraints, but at least it managed to create a world where Banner was a compelling character worthy of holding my attention week after week. Is asking a $125 million dollar production to develop complex characters too much to ask? Is it easier making special FX and CG laden spectacles? Is it really a surefire formula for big box office? I'm sure Norton would beg to differ and based on the fact approximately 70 minutes of character driven footage is slated to be released on the inevitable Blu-Ray, maybe we'll be able to judge for ourselves whether character really is more compelling than CG.
As it is, this installment of the Hulk leaves as much to be desired as Ang Lee's did back in 2003. Neither movie is terrible and both have their merits, but each one is incomplete and ultimately unsatisfying for their own unique reasons. In my humble opinion, Bill Bixby still holds the crown as the most complex and engaging Hulk on the block. Hard to believe 1970's low budget camp could out hustle a mega-budget, star laden block buster...but it does. I guess small is often better than big, even if we're talking about a hulk.