The best Marvel movie yet

Rating: 8/10 (14 June 2008)

Although my personal bias as a Hulk fan will probably sway my opinion on that.
5 years ago I watched Ang Lee's Hulk. I really liked it and couldn't understand why everyone was hating on it. Specifically comic book fans. The more I watched it though the more I started seeing pacing problems with the movie. Three years after I watched the movie I went and got every single Hulk comic I could find. I was in for a shock. The movie wasn't faithful to the comics at all. Reading the comics turned me against the movie entirely.
Needless to say I was a bit cautious whenever this one was announced. I got more optimistic whenever it was revealed that Ed Norton was being cast as Bruce. They couldn't have gotten anyone better. Eric Bana was a terrible choice. Then more casting reveals came along. For the biggest part I was happy about most of them. Except for William Hurt as General Ross. I felt one of the only things that the 03 movie got right was Sam Elliot as General Ross.
Then the trailers came. I wasn't impressed with anything I seen in the trailers. I was still willing to give it a chance, but I was more pessimistic now than ever.
After watching the movie though I can safely say the trailers didn't do it justice. It made me do a 180. This movie is the best piece of Hulk work outside of the comics. One of my worries was that since the 03 Hulk was a bit heavy with the story. This movie was going to go the opposite route and be all action and nothing else.
While this may be somewhat the case, the action is incredible. Abomination and Hulk's blows were thunderous. There was a big chunk of character development on Bruce Banner, but certain things could have been expanded upon. Like General Ross, Dr. Samson, and Betty. Other little things could have been expanded upon as well, but Marvel was worried that this one would be too story heavy and not enough action like the 03 version. In the end the action being so great made up for the slight sacrifice in character and story development.
Liv Tyler I thought did a good job as Betty. She played the innocent love role well. I know some critics are bashing her for whatever reason. I thought she was good.
Now to touch on the negatives. Just two big ones that stuck out to me. As I mentioned earlier I loved Elliot as Ross in the 03 Hulk movie. Hurt was no Ross. I never could completely buy him as Ross through out the movie. I kept thinking on how great Elliot would have been if he were back in the role.
The second was the Abomination's design. Being a comic book geek now Abomination's design irked me more than anything whenever I very first seen the trailer. I see lots of people say that the comic book design makes no sense, but this "is" a movie based off of a "comic book". Gamma affects people in different ways in the comic. The comic design differed him from Hulk's look. Which I felt was the exact thing was wrong with him here with his design. He looked too much like a bald Hulk clone. I'm not as down on it as I was, but I still prefer the comic book version any day.
I thought they went a bit overboard with the TV show homages. I don't like the show. I don't mind the cameo by Lou here and there. The TV show did help Hulk reach get more mainstream, but by that same logic why isn't all the current Batman movies homaging and using elements from the Adam West Batman show? Like I said I'll give credit where credit is due and to the movies credit it does strike a nice balance trying to please both sides, but Batman Begins has shown that you can make a superhero movie with 100 percent of it's inspiration derived from the comics and still be successful and good.
The CGI was great. Way better than the 03 version. The Hulk looked great and they went through a lot of trouble creating the battles the Hulk is in. This is getting too long. Probably my longest review yet. Finally they got the Hulk right. I'm hoping there will be a sequel.