Much better than Ang Lee's "Hulk"

Rating: Null/10 (16 June 2008)

Damning with faint praise or not, "The Incredible Hulk" is far superior to Ang Lee's 2003 effort "Hulk", if only for its opening hour. The film opens with one of the best opening credit sequences I've seen in a while, a hook that immediately grabs the viewer. Many of the following scenes are also superb, with director Louis Leterrier handling the early scenes superbly well, and the first appearance of the Hulk in this movie is among its best scenes. In general, Bruce Banner in South America is far more interesting than Bruce Banner back home.
Back home Bruce Banner is chased, gets angry, turns into the Hulk, and destroys stuff. Oh, there's a poorly-handled and rushed love story as well. Liv Tyler is the most criticized aspect of this film in general but I found her performance effective. Then again, I'm one of the idiots who believes she should be in more major films. In general the acting here is superb all around with Norton being especially effective in the lead role, which he handles far better than Eric Bana did.
"The Incredible Hulk" stops being very interesting around when the film turns from an absorbing and entertaining science fiction film into a bunch of excuses for the big ol' green fellow to destroy things. At least that's how this film feels in its latter half, and instead of being entertained I'm watching a solid script deteriorate rapidly.
Of course, "The Incredible Hulk" could turn out to be something of a comic book-to-film masterpiece when we get to see the original cut of the film that Leterrier and Norton wanted. From what we've seen thus far it is definitely clear that had this film gone the contemplative drama route it would have worked much better than Lee's "Hulk". Could the added minutes that we might get on DVD help this film reach its potential? I don't know. Until then, "The Incredible Hulk" is a good summer flick worth watching but not much more. See it for the best-realized Hulk in any live action version thus far.
6.5/10