Mr Green meet Mr. Orange.

Rating: 5/10 (26 December 2008)

The Incredible Hulk has been touted as a reboot of The Hulk franchise by all involved. Written by Zack Penn (Behind Enemy Lines, X Men 2), and apparently rewritten by Edward Norton in his typical control-freak style, think of this film in the same vein in which 'Batman Begins' rebooted the Batman series - so if you were unfortunate enough to have watched Ang Lee's earlier attempt, you could do a lot worse than forget you had ever seen it.
Since The Incredible Hulk is a reboot of an already well-known tale, don't go into the film expecting any sort of real origin storyline  this isn't Iron Man; you don't get the luxury of spending an hour watching Robert Downey Jr. build a metal suit inside a darkened cave while snorting lines of cocaine off of a hookers ass. Instead, the viewer gets dumped straight into The Hulk's world armed with little more than a clichéd thirty second introduction, comprised primarily of brief Vietnam-style flashbacks and various assembled newspaper-clippings. You know the type headlines: "Giant Green Yeti Touched My Wife", "A Sasquatch Ate My Baby"  just enough exposition for the simpletons in the audience to surmise that the filmmakers are referring to the big green guy that they just spent thirteen bucks to watch. The assumption is that the viewer already knows enough about The Hulk and his origin to make it through the one-hundred and fourteen minute running time, and if they don't, and that's a big 'if', they probably should have bought a ticket to the latest Adam Sandler flick.
With introductions quickly dispensed, The Incredible Hulk picks up in the heart of Brazil, where we find fugitive Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) working a dead-end job in a juice factory, attempting to come to terms with controlling his giant green alter-ego. Living in Brazil? Living in Brazil with hot Brazilian women? Okay, I must have missed the memo to the Office of Big Swinging Dicks. Apparently in the short time period since last months issue of Cleo, and the theatrical window that we call 'ten minutes ago', Banner came to the conclusion that it was somehow undesirable to be hanging out with hot Brazilian poon and watching Portuguese Sesame Street in his jocks like a ghetto pimp. As a symptom of what could only describe as undiagnosed jungle fever, Banner decides that simply controlling his alter-ego isn't enough - he wants a cure. That illusive cure comes in the form of research undertaken by a mysterious US-based scientist working under the codename Mister Blue. The only problem with finding a cure  Mister Blue needs to meet Mister Green in the flesh, which involves Banner travelling back to the good ol' US of A. It doesn't sound that difficult does it? You'd almost be justified in thinking that, well, that is until Bruce Banner's cover is blown via the most weak of plot devices (the only reason to have Banner working in a juice factory). On the run again, Banner must flee from a US Army recovery team aided by an elite Russian-born soldier by the name of Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth).
From a cast standpoint, The Incredible Hulk sports a pretty solid line-up: Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, William Hurt as General Ross, and the extremely underrated Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky. Sure, the cast probably won't make your average film buff cream their pants with anticipation, but the cast is definitely decent by any standards. Edward Norton does a competent job of playing Bruce Banner - I just didn't feel that there was any great emotional range to the character. Maybe it is just the way Norton rolls, but as a viewer I didn't feel any tangible growth or journey with Bruce Banner. Direction-wise, Louis Leterrier (Transporter 2, Unleashed) takes the helm of this popcorn-fest - an interesting choice given his track record, or more accurately, lack of a track record. Despite my apprehensions, Leterrir does a commendable job with The Incredible Hulk. Although I guess when you have so much invested in special effects, and Edward Norton stealth-editing your final cut behind your back, it's kind of difficult to screw the pooch too badly. Speaking of CGI, I'm reminded as to one major thing that always put me off watching Ang Lee's The Hulk - aside from the lack of interest in the character, I was always turned-off by how cornball the CGI looked. There are some films where you can hide bad CGI, and there are some films where you can't - when your major character is a nine feet tall giant green monster, it's like trying to hide Rosanne Barr's naked carcass somewhere in the pages of a Swimsuit Illustrated calendar. It's going to stick out like the proverbial dogs balls. Fortunately for The Incredible Hulk, the CGI was actually quite well done. Sure, there were points in the film when I thought I was watching cutscenes from Gears of War, or when the action hit the streets of downtown Harlem, Cloverfield, but overall the CGI appeared to be a vast improvement from its predecessor.
Overall, The Incredible Hulk was watchable. However, I did utter the words "is that it" after the lights in the cinema came back up  so it's safe to say that I was slightly underwhelmed by the whole experience. Maybe I was expecting a bit too much from a humble popcorn superhero flick, or alternatively, and more likely, maybe it simply wasn't that spectacular. Just average. Not good. Not great. In hindsight, maybe you need to see the Ang Lee version to really be able to appreciate The Incredible Hulk? Either way, if you love the character of The Hulk, love Ed Norton, or just love touching yourself to Liv Tyler in the dark, you could do a lot worse than drop your money on The Incredible Hulk.
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